Australian biotech startup Vaxine has started its COVID19 vaccine clinical trials in Iran, which the team expects to get emergency approvals for by the end of the year.
As developing countries around the world struggle to get enough people vaccinated to reach herd immunity, biotech startups and companies continue developing new vaccines to facilitate vaccination efforts.
Vaccine, as one of these startups, launched phase 2 trials of its vaccines back in May and now it is expanding its range.
With 400 patients participating in the Phase 2 study, the COVAX-19 vaccine will be tested in a country where more than 3.1 million COVID 19 cases and 84 thousand deaths have been registered.
COVAX-19, which could be rebranded to Spikogen once commercialized, uses a protein-based approach using synthetic versions of the covid-19 virus spike protein. This same approach has been used by the Oxford-AstraZeneca, Gamaleya Research Institute, and Novavax vaccines.
The startup reached an agreement with Tehran-based biotech firm CinnaGen to perform the trials. Nikolai Petrovsky, Vaxine’s founder, referred to the partnership by stating:
“Our partner CinnaGen told us they had scoured the world for the best vaccine technology and selected us, saying ‘our experts concluded yours is the best vaccine and we would like to use your vaccine to help save the lives of our people here as so many are being lost daily to COVID-19 infections.’”
The startup was founded back in 2002 by Petrovsky, who is also a professor at Flinders University, to develop vaccines for various diseases.
During the pandemic, Vaxine has continuously pushed for startups and small businesses to participate in the development of Covid19 vaccines, which could increase the chances of eradicating it quickly.
Due to its efforts, the biotech startup won a $1million funding price from the Australian government’s Biomedical Translation Bridge program, which allowed the team to continue its development efforts. These included pre-clinical trials on animals, as well as a phase 1 human study conducted in Australia.
