Oramed, Premas Pursue Oral COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate

Oramed Pharmaceuticals has partnered with Premas Biotech to launch a joint venture, Oravax Medical, meant to develop the world’s first COVID-19 oral vaccine.

Oramed, an Israeli-American company, aims to combine its oral delivery mechanism with Indian drugmaker Premas’ vaccine technology to create a candidate capable of targeting three structural proteins found on the coronavirus.

According to the companies, the virus-like particle triple-antigen vaccine will make it easier to adapt to new variants and its oral delivery should enable easier inoculation and distribution.

In a pilot animal study, the oral vaccine candidate “promoted both systemic immunity through Immunoglobulin G, the most common antibody in blood and bodily fluids that protects against viral infections, and Immunoglobulin A,” the drugmakers claimed. A phase 1 study is slated for the second quarter of this year.