OSE Immunotherapeutics Announces COVID-19 Prophylactic Vaccine Program

OSE Immunotherapeutics announced its team of immunologists is actively working on the development of a prophylactic vaccine against the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2.

To conduct this program, OSE Immunotherapeutics leverages its expertise in the selection and optimization of peptides of interest and their GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) formulation for a specific type of combination of multiple peptides. The Company uses the Memopi® epitope (neo-epitope) optimization technology.

Using bioinformatics approaches and algorithms for predicting immunogenicity in the virus genome, OSE Immunotherapeutics’ R&D team has screened a large number of peptides derived from different proteins of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV (virus responsible for SARS disease) and MERS-CoV (coronavirus of the Middle East respiratory syndrome) and selected the immuno-dominant epitopes from 4 major proteins of coronaviruses. OSE Immunotherapeutics is collaborating with deeptech company MAbSilico to benefit from its know-how and versatile solutions in artificial intelligence algorithms to accelerate optimization of these neo-epitopes and increase their immunogenicity capacity to induce robust T cell memory immunity.

To date, more than 20,000 SARS-CoV-2 neo-epitopes and as many peptide / HLA structural models have been evaluated. OSE Immunotherapeutics has selected the most specific epitopes with high potential for immunogenicity to move into preclinical testing and validate efficacy of the vaccine.

“Our COVEPIT vaccine technology, developed using SARS-CoV-2 optimized neo-epitopes, is complementary to conventional approaches targeting antibodies and could significantly contribute to fight COVID-19 by promoting prophylactic vaccine research focused on memory T cells,” Nicolas Poirier, Chief Scientific Officer of OSE Immunotherapeutics, said. “Research on COVID-19 has shown the potential of antibodies in the fight against the virus, but several studies on SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-2(1, 2 ,3, 4) have shown that the antibody response is highly variable, not always neutralizing and generally quite limited in time. The advantage of a T lymphocyte response is that it can last over time, which is necessary to eliminate infected cells and avoid developing serious forms. This is why we are applying our scientific rationale and validated know-how to participate in the fight against COVID-19."

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