With more than 20 years of experience developing an exceptionally safe and immunogenic peptide vaccine against dementia, in April 2020 Axon announced its plan to develop a novel peptide vaccine against COVID-19. Axon's scientists identified the weakest points of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and used them to design the vaccine. ACvac1 induced extensive antibody production in vaccinated mice, effectively blocking the live virus from replicating and confirming the soundness of Axon's approach. Axon plans to begin first-in-human trials as early as the fourth quarter of 2020.
Based on these encouraging vaccine efficacy results, Axon has decided to open the project to individuals and small investors who will be able to invest directly from the project's website.
Michal Fresser, Chief Executive Officer of Axon said: "There is a global race for a vaccine. Many large corporations are under a lot of pressure to get to a vaccine fast, which often leads to shortcuts and compromises. As an independent biotech with proven clinical-stage vaccine technology, our utmost priority has always been focused on efficacy without compromising safety. Now, we want to give people the opportunity to join us and make their personal contribution to bringing the world a vaccine."
ACvac1 (COVIDAX) – Axon's peptide vaccine candidate against COVID-19
ACvac1 is a prophylactic vaccine against COVID-19 intended to protect healthy individuals from infection. The vaccine contains only key elements of the virus Spike (S) protein capable of inducing desirable immune responses to prevent the virus from interacting with its target host cells, thus preventing the virus from replicating.
In designing ACvac1, Axon has benefited from its experience in developing a safe and effective immunotherapy against neurodegenerative disease for elderly patients, a group at high risk for severe COVID-19 illness. The elderly can be overlooked by other vaccine developers in their push to find an effective vaccine quickly. Typically, vaccinating the elderly requires using higher dosage levels to induce a sufficient antibody response because they have a less efficient immune system. Trials show that some late-stage vaccine candidates may face challenges in using higher doses due to a higher occurrence of adverse events. In comparison, Axon has already proven in previous clinical trials that its vaccination platform can induce a sufficiently high antibody response even in populations over 70 years.
Axon's peptide-based approach is designed to prevent the unwanted serious side effects observed in the trials of novel nucleic acid or conventional vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2.
Norbert Zilka, Chief Science Officer said: "Axon's vaccine approach against COVID-19 is highly differentiated from the other vaccine developers and has enormous potential despite coming later in the race. We unraveled the mechanism of how the virus protects itself from an immune response and where its vulnerable parts are located so that we can efficiently target them."
About Axon COVIDAX
COVIDAX is a special purpose investment company established to give anyone the opportunity to invest in Axon's vaccine against COVID-19. Investment in the project will be open from a dedicated website www.covidax.eu, and is scheduled to begin in October 2020. Investors will become recognized shareholders in the company, developing and later commercializing the vaccine. This is the world's first and only project of this kind. All further information about the COVIDAX project, including the terms and conditions for investors, will be published on the website.
About Axon Neuroscience
Axon Neuroscience is an industry-leading, clinical stage biotech company at the forefront of peptide-based vaccines against fatal human diseases. The company was founded in 1999 and now has the single biggest team in the world dedicated exclusively to peptide vaccine development for treating Alzheimer's Disease.
Axon's lead vaccine AADvac1 is the most clinically-advanced tau therapy in development for treating and preventing Alzheimer's Disease. In late 2019, Axon successfully completed a Phase 2 clinical trial in almost 200 participants, which revealed excellent safety, immunogenicity and efficacy in patients suffering from Alzheimer's Disease. The evidence from its clinical trials on Alzheimer's disease proved its peptide-based vaccine platform to be very safe and well tolerated. Over 80% of the treated Alzheimer's patients demonstrated an exceptional immune response and generated a high level of antibodies. The therapy was able to significantly slow-down the progress of neurodegeneration in treated patients by almost 60%.
Axon's extensive knowledge in producing safe and immunogenic vaccines and well-established scalable technology allowed it to move very quickly in creating its novel peptide vaccine against COVID-19.
Media enquiries:
George Salapa
AXON Neuroscience
[email protected]
SOURCE AXON Neuroscience
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