On Mar. 3, 2020, Heat Biologics announced the Company has formally launched a program within its wholly-owned subsidiary, Zolovax, to develop a vaccine using its immune activating gp96 vaccine platform for treating or preventing infection from the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

The Company also announced that it has filed a provisional patent for use of its technology platform for treating or preventing infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

Heat shock protein gp96 is a versatile and ubiquitous protein found in all human cells. It has been called the immune system’s swiss army knife due to its function as a potent immune adjuvant that has the role of “molecular warning system” to induce immunity against necrotic cells. gp96 is naturally tethered to the cell and is normally released only during necrosis or cell death.

Heat’s proprietary gp96 vaccine platform reprograms live cells to continually secrete antigens of interest bound to the gp96, thus activating a robust T-cell response against those antigens. Heat’s gp96 platform has undergone rigorous testing in numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) and U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)-funded mice and primate trials as a vaccine against SIV/HIV, malaria, zika and other infectious diseases, and has been tested in over 250 patients in multiple NIH and Heat-funded oncology trials.

Heat Biologics is a biopharmaceutical company developing immunotherapies designed to activate a patient’s immune system against cancer and other diseases using its proprietary gp96 platform to activate CD8+ “Killer” T-cells. Heat has completed enrollment in its Phase 2 clinical trial for advanced non-small cell lung cancer with its gp96-based HS-110 therapeutic vaccine. HS-110 is the company’s first biologic product candidate in a series of proprietary immunotherapies designed to stimulate a patient’s own T-cells.