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While Canada is purchasing big batches of coronavirus shots from foreign pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, Moderna, etc., there is a COVID-19 vaccine brewing in its own backyard as well. And it is a plant-based one!
Canadian biopharmaceutical company Medicago Inc is leading clinical trials to come up with a successful vaccine for the coronavirus in Quebec City. If approved for use, it will be supplying the government with 76 million doses of its drug.
While investors have been showing interest in the company lately, Medicago Inc currently remains privately held.
Where’s the ‘plant’ in Medicago’s COVID vaccine?
In general, the development of a vaccine requires a safe version of the virus it is meant to fight. When the vaccine is administered, this non-infectious particle triggers the body to develop an immune system to fight the actual virus. Traditionally, these safe particles are developed using live viruses.
Medicago, on the other hand, uses live plants as bioreactors to create Virus-like Particles (VLPs), which are basically non-contagious versions of the target virus.
The pharma company was successful in producing a VLP of COVID-19 in early March last year, about 20 days after getting hold of the SARS-CoV-2.
©Kalkine Group 2020
When will Medicago’s COVID-19 vaccine be ready?
Medicago Inc's COVID-19 vaccine candidate is currently in Phase 2 of clinical trials.
Results of the clinical trials’ first phase were released back in November last year, which showed that all of the test subjects were making an antibody response following the administration two vaccine doses.
Based on the Phase 1 results, Canadian regulatory authorities gave a go-ahead to Medicago’s Phase 2 and 3 clinical trials on November 12, 2020.
With plans to submit its COVID-19 vaccine candidate for regulatory reviews this year, Medicago says it will be able to manufacture as many as 80 million doses each year 2021 onwards.
The company currently has a large-scale factory under construction in Quebec. Once that is complete in 2023, Medicago believes its production capacity will increase to over a billion doses per year.
