BlueWillow Biologics and Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corporation (MVC) have announced that a preclinical study of their BW-1019 intranasal COVID-19 booster demonstrated that giving the nasal vaccine after intramuscular vaccination induced neutralizing antibodies and protected against disease in a hamster model. According to the companies, no detectable virus was found in either the lungs or nasal passages of the hamsters following a booster dose of BW-1019. The companies announced in November 2020 that they had partnered on development of an intranasal vaccine against SARS-CoV-2.
In addition to the COVID-19 booster, BlueWillow is developing a number of intranasal vaccines based on its NanoVax platform, including vaccines against anthrax, HSV-2, RSV, influenza, and peanut allergy.
BlueWillow VP of Vaccine R&D Vira Bitko said, “COVID-19 has proven the importance of eliciting mucosal immunity through intranasal vaccination in order to stop the cycle of upper respiratory viral carriage and spread. We are excited to demonstrate that our intranasal vaccine candidate not only provides mucosal protection but also boosts the systemic immunity elicited from intramuscular vaccination against COVID-19. We have previously shown similar results in other diseases.”
Medigen CEO Charles Chen commented, “We are pleased that the jointly developed intranasal vaccine has shown strong results in this preclinical study. We are very excited to see the promising boosting effect, which may be an ideal COVID-19 vaccine candidate and complimentary to intramuscular vaccinations. We hope that it will significantly assist in preventing viral transmission of COVID-19.”
BlueWillow CEO Chad Costley said, “We look forward to rapidly advancing this intranasal COVID-19 booster into clinical trials. The current intramuscular vaccines have saved millions of lives, but the limited durability of immune response and lack of sufficient mucosal immunity from these vaccines is now evident. In addition, to properly scale worldwide vaccination, boosters need to be less expensive and more easily administered. BlueWillow’s nanoemulsion adjuvant and Medigen’s spike protein have both already been proven safe in humans, which enables our COVID-19 vaccine candidate to rapidly advance into clinical trials.”
Read the BlueWillow Biologics press release.
