IMV Receives Funding From Canadian Governmental Agencies for COVID-19 Vaccine Phase 1 Clinical Study
IMV Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering a novel class of cancer immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases, today announced that Canadian government agencies will contribute up to CA$4.75 million to advance Phase 1 clinical development of its vaccine candidate, DPX-COVID-19, for the prevention of COVID-19 infection caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-COV-2.
The Company is receiving CA$4.15 million advisory services and funding from the National Research Council of Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP), Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA) and Next Generation Manufacturing Canada (NGen) to support rapid scale-up of DPX-COVID-19 manufacturing process and its evaluation in a phase 1 clinical trial. In addition to this funding, IMV also received CA$600,000 from the NRC IRAP Innovation Assistance Program (IRAP IAP).
“Governmental organizations play a pivotal role in the fight against COVID-19. Their contribution allows IMV to leverage our innovative DPX platform for the rapid development of a vaccine to protect against the coronavirus,” said Frederic Ors, Chief Executive Officer of IMV. “Vaccination is our best hope for ending the current pandemic. Based on our preclinical results and rapid development, we believe that both our vaccine and manufacturing approaches have the potential to be transformational for COVID-19, and we appreciate the governments’ support and confidence in our progress.”
IMV plans to use funding from to advance DPX-COVID-19 with:
A Phase I clinical trial starting this summer in Canada. A Phase 2 trial is expected to start by end of 2020 in the U.S. and Canada following successful Phase 1 top-line results that are expected later this year.
Scale-up manufacturing capacity for commercial production for North American and global markets. DPX-based vaccines do not require biologic manufacturing which gives the Company the potential for fast and large-scale manufacturing to supply a significant number of doses rapidly compared to more conventional vaccines.
DPX-COVID-19, instead of taking a traditional vaccine approach, blends vaccine and immunotherapy science to generate an immune response that targets specific weaknesses of the coronavirus, incorporating several unique key features with the goal to optimize potential safety and efficacy:
DPX-COVID-19 is a formulation of the DPX delivery platform with four complementary peptide antigens that were selected for their high immunogenicity and ability to bind non-overlapping areas on the virus spike and impact its infective function in preclinical studies,
Selected targets are outside of the 614 mutation which, according to recent research1,2 has been demonstrated to increase the virus’ ability to infect cells in vitro and suggested to reduce vaccine-induced immunity. Our vaccine candidate would retain its potential efficacy independently from current/future mutations of the virus at this site,
Areas identified as potentially responsible for vaccine-enhanced disease3 have been excluded to minimize safety risk.
Since the selection of the candidate vaccine announced on May 21st, the Company has made significant progress.
Preclinical studies have demonstrated the capacity of DPX-COVID-19 to induce strong immunogenicity including the binding on target to the spike protein and neutralization,
The Company has completed the current good manufacturing practice (cGMP”) formulation and manufacturing process development for clinical trials, and
The Company has submitted a clinical trial application for regulatory approval after Health Canada agreed on a Phase 1 trial design protocol that includes patients of 56 years old and above.
Other grant applications have been submitted by IMV to support further clinical development and manufacturing scale-up, including for the financing of a phase 2 clinical trial.
About DPX-COVID-19
DPX-COVID-19 is IMV’s vaccine candidate against the novel strain of coronavirus that is responsible for the current pandemic. It is a DPX-based formulation of multiple peptides of the SARS-CoV-2 that generated early and strong immune responses in the preclinical assays in animal models. A first-in-human Phase 1 clinical study is scheduled to initiate during summer 2020. Fully synthetic, DPX-COVID-19 has the potential for fast and large-scale manufacturing to supply a significant number of doses rapidly compared to more conventional vaccines. For more information, visit our webpage dedicated to the development of DPX-COVID-19.