GOVX HUGE COVID-19 Coronavirus NEWS OUT!
GeoVax Provides Update on Coronavirus (COVID-19) Vaccine Development Program
Update Given During Presentation at the World Immunotherapy Congress
ATLANTA, GA, March 04, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- via NEWMEDIAWIRE -- GeoVax Labs, Inc. (OTC: GOVX), a biotechnology company developing human immunotherapies and vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer, today provided an update on its development of a vaccine for prevention/control of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) caused by SARS-Cov-2 coronavirus. The update was given by GeoVax's Chief Scientific Officer, Farshad Guirakhoo, PhD, during his presentation on emerging infectious diseases entitled "Development of Single Dose Vaccines for Emerging Infectious Diseases Using a Novel MVA Platform" at the World Immunotherapy Congress in San Diego, California.
GeoVax is using its GV-MVA-VLP(TM) vaccine platform and expertise to design and construct vaccine candidates using genetic sequences from the virus responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak originating in Wuhan, China. In late January, the Company entered into a letter of intent to begin a collaboration with BravoVax, a vaccine developer in Wuhan, China, to jointly develop a vaccine. Under the arrangement, upon receipt of vaccine candidates from GeoVax, BravoVax will provide testing and manufacturing support, as well as direct interactions with Chinese public health and regulatory authorities.
Dr. Guirakhoo stated, "Development of a safe and effective vaccine to stem current and future epidemics of COVID-19 is a high priority for us. We have designed a number of vaccine candidates which will be narrowed through appropriate animal testing studies based on their safety, immunogenicity and protective efficacy. The final candidate will then be selected for manufacturing and initial human clinical testing for safety and immunogenicity. Our preliminary work with BravoVax is proceeding productively, with ongoing cross-contributions to the testing plans and respective dialogue with funding agencies. In addition, GeoVax is working to develop a proprietary, patented vaccine development process improvement, intended to significantly speed-up the vaccine development process towards testing and validation."
Dr. Guirakhoo continued, "Perhaps of critical importance is that the viral basis of our vaccine vector (MVA) has more than 50 years of safety records and has been recently approved by the FDA for prevention of smallpox and monkeypox diseases. We therefore expect a faster regulatory licensure for our COVID-19 vaccine than for other, unproven technologies."
David Dodd, GeoVax's President and CEO, commented, "The current COVID-19 outbreak underscores the critical importance to identify and validate vaccine development platforms that can provide rapid vaccine response to new, emergent infectious threats. The GeoVax GV-MVA-VLP(TM) platform has been previously demonstrated in animal studies against a variety of infectious challenges (Ebola, Marburg, Zika, HIV, etc.) to be an excellent candidate platform for addressing such 'Disease X' epidemic threats. We look forward to working closely with our industry partners, government agencies and other organizations to advance our developments, including our COVID-19 vaccine, to critical validation milestones."
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