Two more vaccine makers are joining the hunt. Dynavax and Sinovac are teaming up on a vaccine for COVID-19, combining the former’s vaccine adjuvant with the latter’s chemically inactivated coronavirus vaccine candidate.
This isn’t Dynavax’s first COVID-19 partnership. In March, the San Francisco Bay Area-based company struck partnerships with the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Clover Pharmaceuticals to ramp up the development of a vaccine to address the pandemic. Under both pacts, Dynavax will provide its toll-like receptor 9 agonist adjuvant, CpG 1018, to its partners to boost patients’ immune response to vaccines. The adjuvant is already used in Dynavax’s hepatitis B vaccine, Heplisav-B.
“The breadth of the global healthcare community’s efforts to develop an effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19 has been enabled by the prior research and investment in infectious disease understanding and prevention,” said Dynavax CEO Ryan Spencer in a statement. “A collaborative approach across multiple technology platforms enables us to demonstrate the potential for our adjuvant to lead to a safe and effective vaccine to prevent COVID-19.”
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Other companies taking a collaborative approach include GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology, which partnered earlier this month on vaccines and treatments for COVID-19. Their first focus is a pair of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but they will also research vaccines. Like Dynavax, the British pharma is also providing adjuvant to vaccine makers working on COVID-19, including Clover Biopharmaceuticals and Xiamen Innovax Biotech.
Amgen and Adaptive Biotechnologies are working on antibodies, too, which could be used to treat and potentially prevent COVID-19 infection. And numerous other players are developing different types of treatments. Takeda and CSL Behring are leading the charge on a plasma-based treatment. The pair has set up an alliance with other plasma players to pool their knowledge and resources, with the goal of creating a single, unbranded medicine based on the plasma of recovered patients.