Vaccine maker Adimmune Corp (國光生技) expects to speed up its development of a vaccine for COVID-19 after it signed a letter of intent with the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) on Thursday, enabling it to utilize a biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) lab belonging to the NHRI.
Adimmune spokesman Pan Fei (潘飛) told the Taipei Times by telephone yesterday that BSL-3 labs are used for clinical, diagnostic or research programs that work on microbes that can cause a serious or potentially lethal disease through inhalation and might contaminate the environment.
Although Adimmune specializes in researching and producing flu vaccines, it has no BSL-3 facility given that flu viruses are less deadly and treatment is already available, Pan said.
“However, as the novel coronavirus is highly contagious and more lethal than the flu, we believe our tests should be conducted in a BSL-3 lab,” Pan said.
The Taichung-based firm has managed to design and produce four prototypes of antigens to fight the virus based on its recombinant protein technology, after it gained the genetic sequence of COVID-19 from the US Centers for Disease Control in early January, Pan said.
“As the genetic sequence we got is for the whole of the virus, we had to analyze the specific genes of the spike protein, a key protein that the coronavirus uses to invade human cells,” he said.
It is important to find the spike protein to develop antigens for the vaccines, as the special protein induces immune responses in humans, he said.
Even though the novel coronavirus’ genetic sequence is similar to that of the SARS and the MERS viruses, their spike proteins all have different shapes and target different human cells, Pan said.
“Now, we have four different prototypes of the antigens and will run tests on them in the NHRI’s advanced lab,” he said.
Adimmune aims to maintain its goal of running an animal test in the second quarter, Pan said.
The company spent about NT$18 million (US$597,530) on developing a vaccine against SARS in 2003 and received a government subsidy of NT$9 million afterward, corporate data showed.
“It is difficult to predict how much would be spent [on developing a vaccine for COVID-19]. The cost would surge if we began human trials. It would mainly depend on how long the epidemic lasts and government policy,” Pan said.
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