In response to the new coronavirus pneumonia outbreak, which as of February 10th has killed more than 900 people, more than SARS, scientists around the world are actively developing a vaccine against the new coronavirus. Recently, a team of Chinese researchers announced that a newly developed vaccine for the new coronavirus has begun animal testing. This is only two weeks after the CDC successfully isolated China’s first strain of the new coronavirus on January 24th. Two weeks to complete the development of the first financial reporter learned from various sources, the vaccine by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shanghai Tongji University School of Medicine and Shanghai biotechnology company S Microbiology jointly designed and developed, S Microbiology to provide production of vaccine samples. Samples of the new vaccine were injected into more than 100 healthy mice on Sunday. Officials from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the progress of the new coronavirus vaccine to CBN, though emphasized, “It’s still at a very early stage, and there are still a lot of ‘steps’ to go before it can be used in humans.” According to S Microbiology, the developers began two weeks of vaccine development at the end of January after obtaining the new coronavirus antigen from the Chinese CDC. The vaccine was developed based on the mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) platform. mRNA, which is transcribed from a single strand of DNA, carries genetic information just like DNA and can direct protein synthesis. In addition, nine to 12 different antigens were used in animal testing of the vaccine. The first financial reporter contacted Tongji University and the microbiology side of the S. As of press time, the two sides have not yet responded to the vaccine development process and details. Professor Liu Zhongmin, president of Dongfang Hospital affiliated with Tongji University, said in an interview with CCTV: “The mouse test is just a preliminary screening of candidate vaccines, after passing the search for effective viral antibodies, toxicity tests will be conducted, which will be used to monkeys and other large animals to ensure the safety of the vaccine into the human clinical trials. At the same time, in order to ensure the objectivity of the vaccine, the same vaccine samples of the mouse test is also synchronized in the China Center for Disease Control and the China Food and Drug Administration and Research Institute. A CDC official revealed to the first financial reporter: “mRNA vaccine development is really fast, but the real human use will have to wait for a period of time, because there are still a lot of ‘steps’ to cross. “Prof. Liu Zhongmin also said that mRNA-based vaccine development is one of the most effective and advanced methods so far, which has greatly shortened the vaccine development cycle. The responsibility for vaccine safety is huge. Vaccine research and development requires a high level of basic research facilities and must be done under extremely high biosafety requirements, with laboratories at P3 or P4 level, even so, the risk of live-virus research is still very high. Moreover, after the completion of animal testing, clinical safety and efficacy evaluation should be carried out. According to the public information available to the first financial reporter, at present, Shanghai has a P3 laboratory institutions, including the Shanghai Public Health Center and Fudan University. Sources familiar with the matter told CBN that the Shanghai Public Health Center has also begun the research and development of vaccines related to the new coronavirus. Disruptive mRNA platformTraditional vaccine development is a lengthy process, but thanks to new technologies, the vaccine development cycle has been shortened from several years in the past to a few months. mRNA vaccines mimic the process of natural viral infections, inducing human cells to produce proteins that are identical to those on the surface of the pathogen, activating the body’s immune response, which is like building a “pharmaceutical factory” inside the human body. This is like building a “pharmaceutical factory” inside the human body. However, there are still necessary steps to be taken to enter clinical trials, which can range from a few months to a few years, depending on the trial period and the patient. Microbe expects the new vaccine to enter human clinical trials as early as April of this year if animal testing goes well. Industry insiders believe that S Microbial’s R&D progress is likely to be benchmarked against the U.S. biotech company Moderna. Moderna’s vaccine will also enter human clinical trials as soon as April, according to an official statement from Barney Graham, deputy director of the NIH Vaccine Research Center at the National Institutes of Health, Moderna’s partner. “This is an exploration of vaccines for unknown new viruses and will also force changes in the process system that will allow us to look forward to how fast we can move forward.” NIH also said it is ready to scale up to deal with future vaccine production. A review of S Microbiology’s background information by a reporter from China Business News found that the core competencies of the biotech company, which was founded in 2016, lie in mRNA synthesis platforms and LPP nano-delivery platforms, which are currently used in the development of mRNA vaccines. Dr. Hangwen Li, founder CEO of S Microbiology, serves as an assistant professor at Roswell Cancer Center in the United States and Dongfang Hospital affiliated with Shanghai Tongji University. It is understood that compared with traditional vaccines, mRNA vaccine technology has tremendous advantages in terms of efficacy, speed of development, scalability of production and safety. Multiple viral antigens can be integrated into a single mRNA, which allows for the production of complex multi-antigen vaccines that are difficult to achieve with traditional technology. Previously, Microbiologics’ mRNA vaccines were intended for use in the field of tumor immunotherapy, although the company accelerated the development of viral vaccines following the novel coronavirus pneumonia outbreak. Vaccine development also requires significant funding. It is worth noting that on February 7, news said that Shanghai Junshi Biological announced that it had invested 10 million yuan to participate in the A+ round of financing of mRNA drug platform S Microbial, and gained a 2.86% stake in it. Li Ning, CEO of Junshi Bio, confirmed this investment to the First Financial reporter. The industry generally believes that the mRNA drug platform will be expected to become a disruptive iterative product. Currently, the head companies of therapeutic vaccines worldwide have taken mRNA vaccines as an important R&D direction, such as Moderna, CureVac, BioNTech and so on. The global vaccine race Although most scientists believe that “distant water cannot put out a nearby fire”, by the time the vaccine is considered safe, the epidemic may have abated. However, researchers around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Australia and other countries, are still actively involved in the development of a new coronavirus vaccine. A vaccine race against the virus is also underway, and CEPI (Consortium for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation), a government-enterprise partnership established in 2017, has invested$9 million each in four startups and research institutes since the outbreak of the new coronavirus pneumonia, including Moderna, Inovio, and a research team from the University of Queensland in Australia. and research organizations each with$9 million to support the development of a novel coronavirus vaccine. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the organization, told CBN that they are aiming to hopefully enter human clinical trials within four months. In addition to the mRNA approach, DNA-based can also quickly develop vaccines. Inovio, a U.S. biotech company, launched a research and development program for the new coronavirus the day after Chinese scientists released the genome sequence of the new coronavirus to a public database. They designed a DNA vaccine against the neocoronavirus’s spiny protein, and within two days had designed a vaccine that targeted the spiny protein. innovio CEO Joseph Kim says the company’s development of a vaccine based on the virus’s genetic sequence is more efficient and faster than the traditional lab approach of using the virus entity for testing. on January 28, innovio partnered with Suzhou-based biopharmaceutical company Aide et Vieux. On Jan. 28, Inovio partnered with Suzhou-based biopharmaceutical company Aidee Vixin Biologics to develop a vaccine using the latest DNA vaccine technology, and said it aims to advance the vaccine to the clinical trial stage in China in the shortest possible time. “The development of a vaccine is a very difficult task, requiring strong technology on the one hand, although the technical difficulties have been largely overcome, but on the other hand it also requires strong funding. ” Professor Peter Hotez, a professor at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine at Rockefeller University in Houston, who has long been engaged in coronavirus research, told the first financial reporter, “The failure of vaccine research and development from SARS can be seen, as soon as the epidemic has passed, the funding for vaccine research and development is obviously insufficient. The difficulty of vaccine R&D itself is very high, and it is difficult to continue without financial support.” A Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Pasteur Institute responsible person also told the first financial reporter: “There are a lot of difficulties will hinder scientists to develop vaccines, such as when the epidemic passed, no enterprise will go to do industrialized production. “But he still said that the stockpile of vaccines has positive significance for the prevention and control of similar viruses in the future. Taking Ebola as an example, when the virus first broke out in West Africa in 2014, there was no vaccine available, however, when the Ebola epidemic broke out again in Congo in 2019, more than 200,000 people were injected with the Ebola vaccine, which suppressed the spread of the epidemic in time. During this outbreak, the world showed unprecedented support for basic research. Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Epidemic Preparedness Innovation Alliance, told CBN, “There will always be one of these teams that we hope to fund that will bring hope.” Content source: first finance