Akers Biosciences Acquires Licenses to Coronavirus Vaccine Candidate from Premas Biotech

• Established D-Crypt platform will be used to develop a proof-of-concept targeting three of the top five viral vaccine protein candidates for Coronavirus
• Current Regulatory environment could lead to expedited clinical trials
• Rapid commercial scale-up processes in place with Premas based on genetically engineered yeast platform

Thorofare, New Jersey, March 24, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Akers Biosciences, Inc. (the “Company”) (NASDAQ: AKER), a developer of rapid health information technologies, today announced that it has acquired a licensing agreement with Premas Biotech, under which Akers will in-license a novel coronavirus vaccine candidate under development by Premas using Premas’ genetically engineered S. cerevisiae platform, D-Crypt, and partner with Premas to ultimately seek FDA approval. The current global crisis has created the potential for an expedited review process from the FDA, which has recently noted its willingness to fast-track human clinical trials for certain coronavirus candidates.

Prabuddha Kundu, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Premas Biotech, added, “The strategic relationship today between Premas and Akers should accelerate our development timeline as we leverage the proven D-Crypt^Tm platform and Akers’ 30 years of operational experience navigating the healthcare regulatory environment. We believe our platform has three key advantages which we believe will set our potential vaccine apart in the industry. First, it has successfully expressed more than 30 proteins of similar profile to those in the structure of COVID-19. We believe our platform is well suited for the expression of difficult vaccine candidate proteins, a key and difficult step in the process of developing a vaccine. Second, the technology platform is highly scalable with a robust process, which should represent significant cost savings compared to other similar vaccine platforms, which we believe is a key advantage to peers in the field. Third, we believe the current global pandemic might allow for an expedited FDA review timeline based on recent pronouncements regarding other COVID-19 vaccine and treatment candidates. In fact, we would hope to have material updates regarding proof of concept, drug design, and regulatory discussions in the near term.”