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Israeli company set to become first in world to launch ORAL COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials
- Oravax Medical, a Jerusalem-based subsidiary of Oramed Pharmaceuticals, develops oral vaccine against COVID-19
- Oral vaccine targets three proteins on the virus rather than the single spike protein that Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines target
- Researchers say it’s faster, cheaper and easier to manufacture than injectables and can be distributed in poorer countries
- The team will first test whether one or two pills are more effective, then compare the vaccine to a placebo
An Israeli company is set to become the first in the world to begin clinical trials of an oral vaccine against COVID-19.
Oravax Medical, a subsidiary of Jerusalem-based Oramed Pharmaceuticals, has been given the green light to begin the study by the Institutional Review Board of Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center.
The team is now awaiting approval from the Ministry of Health, which is expected in a few weeks.
Oramed CEO Nadav Kidron told the Jerusalem Post that an oral vaccine would be faster, cheaper and easier to manufacture than injected vaccines.
Moreover, it could be easily distributed in low and middle income countries.
“An oral COVID-19 vaccine would remove several barriers to rapid and large-scale distribution, potentially allowing people to take the vaccine themselves at home,” he said.
“While ease of administration is essential today to speed up inoculation rates, an oral vaccine could become even more valuable in the event that a COVID-19 vaccine could be recommended each year as the standard influenza vaccine.”
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Oravax Medical, a subsidiary of Jerusalem-based Oramed Pharmaceuticals, develops oral vaccine against COVID-19
The oral vaccine targets three proteins on the virus rather than the single spike protein that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines target and researchers say it’s faster, cheaper, and easier to manufacture than injectables (file image )
The technology is the same as that used by the company to develop insulin capsules for patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Nadav Kidron told the Jerusalem Post.
Kidron explained that the trials are initially conducted as a “proof of concept” rather than to test efficacy.
Researchers are recruiting 24 unvaccinated volunteers, half receiving one tablet and the other two tablets.
The team will analyze safety and then take blood samples from participants to measure antibody levels.
If the results are positive, the trial will move to phase III when the capsules are tested against a placebo.
“The idea here is that we want to show a proof of concept: that it works for people,” Kidron told The Jerusalem Post.
“I pray and hope we will. Imagine that we could give someone an oral vaccine and they were vaccinated. It would be a revolution for the whole world.
The Oravax vaccine targets three proteins on the virus rather than the single spike protein that the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines target.
Kidron says it should help the pill be much more effective against the variant, which often has spike protein mutations.
“This vaccine is expected to be much more resistant to variants of COVID-19,” he told The Jerusalem Post.
“Even though the virus crosses a line, there is a second line, and if across the second line, there is a third.”
The pill can be shipped in a refrigerated cooler and even be stored at room temperature, unlike other COVID-19s.
Plus, it wouldn’t need to be administered by a medical professional, which would make it easy to distribute to schools, offices, and other businesses.
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