YS Biopharma Announces US FDA Clearance Of IND Application For PIKA COVID-19 vaccine

NEW YORK, Nov. 10, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- YS Biopharma Co., Ltd. ("YS Biopharma" or the "Company"), a global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializing new generations of vaccines and therapeutic biologics for infectious diseases and cancer, today announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared the Investigational New Drug Application (IND) for PIKA COVID-19 vaccine.  PIKA COVID-19 vaccine is currently in Phase 3, multi-country, multi-center clinical trial conducted at Southeast Asian and Middle East countries.

PIKA COVID-19 vaccine is composed of PIKA adjuvant and a stable trimeric form of the recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) protein as the main antigen component of the vaccine candidate. PIKA immunomodulating technology is a proprietary innovation originated at YS Biopharma and has been utilized in developing several promising clinical stage vaccines and immuno-oncology therapeutic candidates.

The proposed study in the USA is a Phase I, open label, dose-escalation study to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of a single booster dose of PIKA COVID-19 vaccine in healthy adults, who have completed a primary COVID-19 vaccine series. It is expected to provide useful information about PIKA COVID-19 vaccine as a heterologous booster against dominant or emerging variants in the USA, such as omicron BA.5 or XBB, regardless of previous vaccination or infection history.

Based on previous clinical study conducted at United Arab Emirates, at 5ug antigen per dose, the lowest dose level in the study, PIKA COVID-19 vaccine elicited significantly high levels of neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron BA.5 subvariant, the dominant SARS-CoV-2 variant circulating globally today, when administered as a heterologous third dose in participants who had previously received two doses of an inactivated vaccine.

YS Biopharma remains committed to completing the current clinical studies and regulatory submissions at various jurisdictions in the first half of 2023, while concurrently preparing for its commercialization in those countries and regions.

About PIKA COVID-19 Vaccine

Empowered by PIKA immunomodulating technology, PIKA COVID-19 vaccine is a combination of the SARS-CoV-2 spike (S) subunit protein and the PIKA adjuvant. The antigen for this candidate vaccine is a recombinant SARS-CoV-2 spike protein with a stable prefusion S trimeric protein structure. PIKA adjuvant is a synthetic chemical analogue of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) that has been shown to be a TLR3 agonist, which elicits both Th1 and Th2 immune responses.  It promotes the activation and maturation of dendritic cells and upregulate the co-stimulatory molecules, such as CD80, CD86, HLA-DR, CD83, and MHC-Class I on dendritic cells and induces the activation and proliferation of both B and NK cells.

About YS Biopharma

YS Biopharma is a global biopharmaceutical company dedicated to discovering, developing, manufacturing and commercializing new generations of vaccines and therapeutic biologics for infectious diseases and cancer. It has developed a proprietary PIKA® immunomodulating technology platform and a series of prophylactic and therapeutic biologics targeting Rabies, Hepatitis B, Shingles, influenza, and Coronavirus. YS Biopharma operates in China, Singapore, the United States, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines, with over 800 employees. For more information, please visit www.yishengbio.com.

SOURCE YS Biopharma