April 19, 2021 -- Aegis Life, subsidiary of Entos Pharmaceuticals, has begun a phase I/II clinical trial of Entos' Covigenix VAX-001, a DNA COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine candidate "encodes the SARS-CoV-2 Spike (S) protein and uses novel Fusogenix technology for delivery," Aegis Life said. The next-generation gene delivery technology delivers DNA information inside cells, which is needed to make the viral protein for VAX-001 work. The trial is being conducted at the Canadian Center for Vaccinology and the IWK Health Centre, both in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The two firms have also developed a second vaccine candidate, Covigenix VAX-002, which is now in preclinical studies and is intended as a pancoronavirus and emerging variant vaccine, they said.