Positive long term immunological results at 6 months in healthy volunteers with strong T cell memory responses against virus proteins. - CoVepiT, based on 13 peptides, elicits durable T-cell immunity against a wide range of structural and non-structural viral proteins.
- The vaccine remains independent of mutations identified in current and emerging variants*.
OSE Immunotherapeutics announces positive analysis of the long-term immune T cell responses of CoVepiT, its prophylactic vaccine candidate against COVID-19, with positive immunological results obtained at 6 months on T cell memory response in the vaccinated subjects. In parallel, the resolution of local indurations related to T cell mechanism of action and the good safety profile were confirmed. This durability and longevity of the T cell memory response at 6 months come in addition to the initial immune T cell results achieved at Week 6 as primary endpoint for all subjects of the clinical trial. This long term positive immune response is of strong interest as more multispecific memory T cells are expected to be efficient for immunocompromised patients in case of any new emerging coronavirus or variants of concern.
Dominique Costantini CEO of OSE Immunotherapeutics, comments: “It was important for OSE Immunotherapeutics to validate the concept and paradigm that long-term immunity against coronavirus could be achieved in human with its T-cell vaccine platform inducing durable memory T lymphocytes, with additional properties as T cells resident in the lung already described in preclinical studies. For immunocompromised patients, it is established that they are more exposed to COVID-19 hospitalizations. New treatments like monoclonal antibodies or anti-viral treatments are available for immunocompromised patients. Additional booster shots of registered vaccines are also recommended for this fragile population with a poor antibody response. Given the new therapeutics and multiple boosters recommended in these patients, additional clinical development of CoVepiT is difficult under the current circumstances. The strategy for OSE is now to leverage these long-term T cell response positive results and to select the most relevant peptides allowing an easier industrial scale-up to be ready for any new pandemic crisis with a novel variant of concern. We thank Bpifrance who supports this project, including its industrial dimension.”
*These epitopes, fragments of viral proteins, are antigenic determinants recognized by T cell receptors during an adaptive T immune response. They are not currently impacted by the mutations described for the various current variants (in particular Delta, Omicron) and emerging variants due to the epitopes selected in the conserved regions of the virus without recurrent mutations.