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Altimmune Announces Manufacturing Agreement with Vigene Biosciences for AdCOVID™, its Single Dose Intranasal Vaccine Candidate for COVID-19
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altimmune, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALT), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that the
About this update from Altimmune, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 22, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Altimmune, Inc. (Nasdaq: ALT), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that the Company has entered into an agreement with Vigene Biosciences (“Vigene”) to manufacture AdCOVIDTM, Altimmune’s single-dose intranasal vaccine candidate for COVID-19. Vigene, a Rockville, Maryland-based award-winning Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (CDMO), specializes in viral vectors and will deploy its capabilities to manufacture AdCOVID. Following recent positive pre-clinical data, Altimmune plans to start a Phase 1 clinical trial of AdCOVID in Q4 2020.\n “Vigene is a fantastic partner to advance AdCOVID into Phase 1 clinical testing and beyond,” said Dr. Vipin K. Garg, President and CEO of Altimmune. Dr. Garg continued, “We believe Vigene’s deep experience in viral vector production and their collaborative, client focused approach will help facilitate Altimmune’s timeline for clinical development of AdCOVID.” “With our new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and our expertise in viral vector production, we are well positioned to support Altimmune in their COVID-19 vaccine development efforts,” said Dr. Zairen Sun, Vigene’s President and CEO. “In addition to our existing facility, we are in the process of expanding our capacity so that we can support Altimmune beyond clinical development into commercial scale manufacturing.” Altimmune is also initiating scale up of manufacturing of its AdCOVID vaccine for advanced clinical trials and commercial production. The Company is actively engaged in discussions with additional strategic manufacturing partners with the goal of producing at least 100 million doses of AdCOVID in 2021. AdCOVID is an intranasal vaccine candidate designed to block viral infection and to provide protection against viral spread through stimulation of both mucosal and systemic neutralizing antibodies (IgA and IgG) as well as cell-mediated immunity. By stimulating mucosal immunity in the nasal cavity, a key point of entry and replication for SARS-CoV-2, AdCOVID has the potential to defend against both infection in the recipient as well as spread of the virus to others. Intranasal administration can also be accomplished more simply than an injection and may eliminate the need for highly trained medical personnel. In addition, since it is e...