Medicago claims to have a viable vaccine candidate for COVID-19

13 March 2020

While most Japanese pharma companies were shedding capital value by as much as 7% today, Mitsubishi Chemical (TYO: 4188) closed up 3.48% at 625 yen on the news that one of its units had developed a vaccine against the novel coronavirus.

Canada-based biotech firm Medicago, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, on Thursday announced it had successfully produced a virus-like particle (VLP) of the coronavirus just 20 days after obtaining the SARS-CoV-2 (virus causing the COVID-19 disease) gene.

Production of the VLP is the first step in developing a vaccine for COVID-19 which will now undergo pre-clinical testing for safety and efficacy. Once this is completed, Medicago expects to discuss with the appropriate health agencies to initiate human trials of the vaccine by summer (July/August) 2020.

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