On Sept. 11, 2020, MediciNova announced that BioComo, co-developer of MediciNova’s SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for COVID-19, announced that its Respiratory Syncytial (RS) virus vaccine using BC-PIV technology induced high neutralizing antibodies in mice.  BioComo issued a press release on September 11, 2020.

BioComo’s RS virus vaccine was created using the BC-PIV and VLP-BC-PIV platform technology developed by BioComo and Mie University.  The RS virus specific antigen was loaded into BC-PIV and VLP-BC-PIV and mice were inoculated by intranasal administration. Strong induction of neutralizing antibodies against the prefusion F antigen was confirmed.

RS virus is known to infect the human respiratory tract and re-infection occurs throughout life.  In general, RS virus only cause mild cold symptoms in healthy adults.  However, infants with a first-time infection, immunocompromised people, and elderly people may develop severe diseases such as bronchitis, bronchiolitis, or pneumonia.  RS virus vaccine development has been ongoing for the past 30 years, but without success to date.

The successful induction of neutralizing antibodies against the RS virus using BC-PIV technology and the intranasal route of administration support the scientific and technical rationale of MediciNova’s intranasal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for COVID-19. This confirmation of neutralizing antibody induction by the RS virus vaccine strongly supports the likelihood of successful induction of neutralizing antibodies by MediciNova’s intranasal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine which also uses BC-PIV technology.

BioComo’s RS virus vaccine mouse model study was conducted at Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology (IZI) in Leipzig, Germany.  IZI is the largest research and development institute in the field of medicine and life sciences in the EU.  MediciNova is also planning to work with IZI for additional animal studies for its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development.