Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company focused on the development and commercialization of prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with significant unmet medical need, today announced it will participate in a UK government-funded clinical trial looking at different COVID-19 ‘booster’ vaccines that launches today.
The Cov-Boost trial, led by University Hospital Southampton NHS Foundation Trust, will look at seven different COVID-19 vaccines, including Valneva’s inactivated vaccine VLA2001, as potential boosters. It will be the first trial in the world to provide vital data on how effective a booster of each vaccine is in protecting individuals from the virus.
The vaccines will be given at least three months after a second dose as part of the ongoing vaccination programme. One booster will be provided to each volunteer and could be a different brand to the one they were originally vaccinated with. The trial will also include a control group.
Initial results from the trial, expected in September, will help inform decisions by the UK Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on any potential booster programme from autumn this year, ensuring the UK’s most vulnerable people are given the strongest possible protection over the winter period.
Thomas Lingelbach, Chief Executive Officer of Valneva, commented, “We are pleased to be involved in this new Cov-Boost trial. Valneva has the only whole virus, inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe and we believe our VLA2001 vaccine has an important role to play in the ongoing pandemic, including as a booster. We remain fully committed to completing development and bringing our inactivated vaccine solution to the market.”
In parallel to the Cov-Boost trial, Valneva will continue working on its pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial “Cov-Compare”, (VLA2001-301) which the Company launched in April 2021[1]. This trial compares Valneva’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, VLA2001, against AstraZeneca’s conditionally approved vaccine, Vaxzevria[2]. Recruitment for the trial, conducted in the U.K. and supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), is ongoing (https://www.ukcovid19study.com/). Subject to successful Phase 3 data, Valneva aims to make regulatory submissions for initial approval in the autumn of 2021.
About Valneva SE
Valneva is a specialty vaccine company focused on the development and commercialization of prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with significant unmet medical need. We take a highly specialized and targeted approach to vaccine development, beginning with the identification of deadly and debilitating infectious diseases that lack a prophylactic vaccine solution and for which there are limited therapeutic treatment options. We then apply our deep understanding of vaccine science, including our expertise across multiple vaccine modalities, as well as our established vaccine development capabilities, to develop prophylactic vaccines to address these diseases. We have leveraged our expertise and capabilities both to successfully commercialize two vaccines and to rapidly advance a broad range of vaccine candidates into and through the clinic, including candidates against Lyme disease, the chikungunya virus and COVID-19.