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A future oral coronavirus vaccine is about to begin clinical trials in Israel, and the developer believes it could help get vaccines to countries that are struggling to inoculate due to limited infrastructure.
Oramed Pharmaceuticals has created a single-dose oral version of a future vaccine developed by India-based Premas Biotech, and announced in March that it had successfully generated antibodies in pigs.
He hopes the pill developed by Israel will be suitable as a simple initial vaccination, as it will not need to be stored at a low temperature and eliminates the need for professionals to administer the injections.
This could “be a game-changer” in countries like India, where only 5% of the population has been vaccinated, said Nadav Kidron, CEO of Oramed.
He predicts that the technology could help healthcare providers tackle the possible challenge of providing booster injections – increasingly discussed as the Delta variant goes wild in some countries – and believes the pills will be particularly helpful for one. such task. He considers the formula particularly robust in the face of new variants.
Israel has already started giving boosters to the immunocompromised, and health officials in many parts of the world are talking about the possibility of boosters for everyone. Meanwhile, there is a growing suggestion in medical circles that the booster injections may not need to be of the same vaccine formula as the initial injections, and there may even be benefits to it. a mixed approach.
Kidron told The Times of Israel he felt an urgency for the product to be approved and in the hands of health providers, given the prospect of a call for recalls and the lack of vaccines in some parts of the world.
“Our oral vaccine, which does not rely on a freezing supply chain, unlike other coronavirus vaccines, could make all the difference between a country that can emerge from the pandemic or not,” he said. told The Times of Israel.
In India, where only 5% of the population has been vaccinated, citizens are lining up to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus. (Punishes Paranjpe / AFP)
“Particularly in areas hard hit by the virus that have not yet vaccinated their populations, an oral COVID-19 vaccine could be a game-changer. “
Oramed has now received approval from Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center to begin a clinical trial on 24 unvaccinated volunteers, and will monitor whether the vaccine pill prompts them to generate antibodies and, if so, at what level.
Nadav Kidron, CEO of Oramed Pharmaceuticals. (Courtesy: Oramed)
The company said it plans to start testing its Oravax pill next month, as soon as final approval is received from the Department of Health.
Kidron said its vaccine targets three surface proteins of the SARS CoV-2 virus, while most of the others target only one, and added that it targets proteins that are not subject to the mutation. , and suggested that this would keep the vaccine effective in the face of newer variants.
“Our vaccine is a particularly strong candidate against the evolving COVID-19 virus due to its unique targeting of three proteins rather than one,” he said.
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