According to Ocugen, the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) will conduct a study comparing the immune response generated by Ocugen’s OCU500 vaccine candidate delivered via inhalation versus OCU500 delivered as a nasal spray. The research will be conducted as part of Project NextGen, which is expected to begin clinical trials early next year.
In September 2022, Ocugen announced that it had acquired US, European, and Japanese rights to intranasal COVID-19 vaccine technology from Washington University in St. Louis, and the company is currently developing OCU500 for the prevention of both COVID-19 and flu.
Ocugen Chairman and CEO Shankar Musunuri commented, “We believe our novel mucosal vaccine platform technology has the potential to prevent infection and spread of COVID-19, and improve durability for an annualized vaccine similar to flu. This is the first vaccine candidate using our inhaled platform technology, which we hope to expand in order to address multiple respiratory threats, including flu. We have benefited from a strong collaborative relationship with NIAID and BARDA since the start of Project NextGen and we look forward to participating in this initiative.”
Read the Ocugen press release.
