HAUPPAUGE, NY (Nov. 30, 2020) – COVAXX, a U.S. company developing a synthetic multitope peptide-based vaccine to fight COVID-19, today announced that Chief Scientific Officer Farshad Guirakhoo, Ph.D. will participate in the Opening Keynote panel discussion, “SARS-CoV-2 - We have a vaccine-what now?” at the virtual World Vaccine & Immunotherapy Conference West Coast on Tuesday, December 1, at 12:00 pm PST.
Dr. Guirakhoo will be joined by the following vaccine experts:
● Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D., FASTMH, FAAP, Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, Co-Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and a member of the World Health Organization (WHO) Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee for WHO TDR (Special Programme on Tropical Diseases Research).
● Maria-Elena Bottazzi, Ph.D., Co-Director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development of Baylor College of Medicine.
● Jeffrey Roberts, M.D., Associate Director for Scientific Affairs in the Office of Vaccines Research and Review at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The panel of global vaccine leaders will discuss lessons learned from COVID-19 for the next pandemic: what is needed to enhance public health support, harmonization of safety data collection across vaccine candidates, addressing safety concerns and the path to regulatory approval.
“We cannot repeat a scenario in which hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions around the world die from an outbreak. We must grow and improve our response in preparation for the next pandemic, as it is sure to come,” said Dr. Guirakhoo. “I am honored to take part in this distinguished panel of experts to help prepare the industry.”
COVAXX is clinically evaluating its UB-612 vaccine to fight COVID-19 and is the only multitope, synthetic peptide-based vaccine candidate in the clinic. designed to activate both B-cell and T-cell arms. COVAXX is currently completing Phase 1 clinical trials of UB-612 in Taiwan, and will begin Phase 2-3 clinical trials at the end of 2020/1Q 2021 in Asia, Latin America and the U.S. COVAXX has an agreement with the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), home of the National Pandemic Center, to conduct trials in the U.S. Last month, COVAXX announced a global logistics partnership with Maersk, the world’s largest shipping and integrated logistics provider, that creates a framework for all transportation and supply chain services that will be needed to deliver COVAXX’s UB-612 around the world.
COVAXX also recently announced $2.8 billion in advance purchase commitments to deliver mor than 140 million vaccine doses to emerging countries.
About UB-612
UB-612 is a multitope vaccine designed to activate both B and T-cell arms of the immune system. UB-612 consists of the Spike protein S1 subunit Receptor Binding Domain (S1-RBD) genetically fused to a single chain Fc domain of human IgG1 (S1-RBD-sFc), combined with proprietary peptides representing T helper (Th) and cytotoxic T-cell (CTL) epitopes on S2 subunit, Membrane and Nucleocapsid structural protein components of SARS-CoV-2. These Th and CTL peptides are selected based on their predicted binding to human MHC I and II, which would allow for the induction of memory recall and T-cell activation and effector functions. The vaccine candidate is formulated with a proprietarty CpG1 adjuvant and aluminum phosphate (AdjuPhos®) to induce a balanced Th1/Th2 response with the Th1 polarity.
About COVAXX
The mission of COVAXX is to democratize health and safeguard lives around the world by tackling the global COVID-19 pandemic using cost-effective, scalable and proven science-based solutions. The COVAXX multitope peptide-based vaccine for COVID-19has shown promising preclinical safety and efficacy data and is based on a commercially proven, scalable vaccine platform.
COVAXX is a subsidiary of United Biomedical Inc (UBI), founded in 1985 and headquartered in New York. UBI has established a long legacy as a scientific trailblazer creating technological firsts, including the manufacture and commercialization of more than 100 million antibody blood diagnostic tests and 5 billion vaccine doses against virulent diseases in animal health. With exclusive access to UBI's core technology platforms, COVAXX can develop and commercialize high precision antibody tests and a promising COVID-19 vaccine that together would form a unique Differentiating Infected from Vaccinated Individuals (DIVI) system.
For more information, visit www.covaxx.com
