Gritstone vaccine has potential to protect against mutant variants of SARS-CoV-2

20 January 2021

California-based Gritstone Oncology (Nasdaq: GRTS) saw its shares go stratospherical yesterday, closing up 248.5% at $22.27 and rising a further 19% after-hours, when the biotech firm announced encouraging progress on its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Gritstone said that it is advancing development of a second-generation vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, with potential for both prolonged protection and potency against Spike mutants.

Gritstone and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, have entered into a clinical trial agreement to initiate clinical testing. A Phase I clinical trial, expected to be conducted through the NIAID-supported Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium (IDCRC), is in development. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (Gates Foundation) is supporting the pre-clinical evaluation of the vaccine.

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