OPEN INNOVATION TO DEVELOP A VACCINE THAT WILL HELP KILL SARS-CoV-2
The current Covid-19 vaccines aim at preventing illness and death. This is wonderful.
But they are not designed to eliminate the virus itself, nor prevent its transmission.
In themselves, they will not put an end to the pandemic.
The reason is simple: injectable vaccines elicit systemic humoral and cell-mediated immune responses, but they do little if anything to induce protective immunity on the mucosal surfaces where the virus establishes itself and can reproduce for months, without symptoms, generating potentially dangerous mutant variants each time it reproduces.
Only mucosal vaccines can unleash weapons that directly kill pathogens outside the body before they get the chance to infect any cell. These weapons are secretory IgA antibodies, the first line of defense against all respiratory viruses. But mucosal immune responses are not limited to IgAs, they also engage the complement system, cell-mediated defenses and can jump-start the production of systemic IgG antibodies just in case the pathogen managed to breach the mucosal barrier. And best of all, mucosal immunity can last a lifetime.
Ever wondered why the oral polio vaccine works so well? Now you know.
So why are there no mucosal vaccines against respiratory pathogens?
There are three specific challenges in developing mucosal vaccines:
- Adhere to epithelia, to avoid vaccine loss in mucus secretions.
- Protect vaccine antigens from degradative enzymes in mucus secretions.
- They must be sufficiently immunogenic to activate a more tolerant mucosal immunity.
But these challenges must be overcome… and in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is no time to waste!
Meet Novochizol™: the promise of an ideal mucosal vaccine delivery system.
Novochizol™ technology quantitatively transforms single chitosan molecules into uniformly sized nanoparticles. As a mucosal vaccine delivery system, Novochizol™ offers:
- Versatility: RNAs, peptides, proteins and viruses can all be formulated in any form.
- Low nasal clearance: Novochizol adheres to epithelia, promising no vaccine loss.
- Intracellular transport: Novochizol bring active ingredients inside cells for processing.
- Protection: Novochizol protects active ingredients from proteases and nucleases.
- Stability: Novochizol formulations are chemically and physically more stable.
- Adjuvant properties: Novochizol particles promise to enhance vaccine immunogenicity.
- Prior art: Chitosan, Novochizol parent molecule, is an effective Influenza vaccine carrier.
- Safety: Preclinical and clinical studies all support Novochizol lack of toxicity and safety.
The CLEOPATRA VII open collaboration project: Join us!
With Novochizol™ technology proven and available, we can address the main challenge in developing the ultimate COVID-19 vaccine: finding the right combination of antigens necessary and sufficient to elicit strong mucosal immunity, leading to full immunization.
We have started to formulate some SARS-CoV-2 antigens, but we need more variety and know-how in vaccinology. We are thus looking for research organizations that would be interested in helping generate this variety and co-formulated together a killer vaccine, in the very best sense of the term!
How does it work?
Being Novochizol experts we know how to formulate a variety of active ingredients as aerosols for intra-nasal or any other form of mucosal vaccine delivery.
And we are doing just that.
We also have access to research facilities to test formulations in animal models for their capacities to elicit the production of relevant classes of antibodies (IgGs, IgAs, IgEs) and other markers indicative of systemic and mucosal immunities.
And we will be doing just that.
The rest will be the history that we want to write to you.
So, if your organization or company has the capacity, the will, and the wisdom to share samples of SARS-CoV-2 antigens it may have access to and its know-how in vaccinology, Cleopatra VII wants you!
CLEOPATRA VII is an open-source research project.
Just like open-source IT projects that generate the best software, we believe we can do the same by bringing together smart research organizations, companies, and individuals to generate a proof of concept that will lead to a decisive victory in the war against the virus.
For more information:
Vanya Loroch, CEO of Novochizol SA, Switzerland
tel. +41 76 370 73 25
e-mail: vl@novochizol.ch
