OSE Immunotherapeutics Receives €200,000 from Nantes Metropole to Develop CoVepiT, its COVID-19 Prophylactic Vaccine Program

NANTES, France, July 16, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OSE Immunotherapeutics (ISIN: FR0012127173; Mnémo: OSE) today announced it will receive a grant of up to €200,000 from Nantes Metropole, the metropolitan area of Nantes community, dedicated to the development of a prophylactic vaccine against the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2. This funding was awarded as part of the Metropolitan Fund to Support Health Innovations Linked to the COVID-19 Health Crisis, a €1 million fund created by Nantes Metropole for health innovations to address the COVID-19 health crisis.

“We thank Nantes Metropole for supporting us with a grant that will allow us to accelerate the development of a vaccine candidate against COVID-19. Our teams are diligently working to finalize the preclinical phase of this program based on a T lymphocyte response that can last over time to eliminate infected cells and avoid developing serious forms. We expect the first preclinical results confirming vaccine protection during this summer. Based on these results, we could launch the clinical phase at the end of the year, provided we have the funding required for this clinical study,” commented Alexis Peyroles, Chief Executive Officer of OSE Immunotherapeutics.

OSE Immunotherapeutics is committed in its effort to fight COVID-19 and is actively working on the development of a prophylactic vaccine against the pandemic virus SARS-CoV-2. This research program aims to develop a prophylactic vaccine focused on memory T cells and based on a multiepitope- peptide approach (epitopes modified to induce strong and sustained CD8 immune responses).

To conduct this program, OSE Immunotherapeutics is leveraging its expertise in the selection and optimization of disease-relevant peptides and using its established Memopi neo-epitope optimization technology to increase the memory immune response of T lymphocytes against specific antigens.

Using a bioinformatics approach and algorithms for predicting immunogenicity in the virus genome, OSE Immunotherapeutics’ R&D team has screened a large number of peptides derived from different proteins of SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV (the virus responsible for SARS disease) and MERS-CoV (coronavirus of the Middle East respiratory syndrome) and has selected the immuno-dominant epitopes from 8 major proteins of coronaviruses.

ABOUT THE METROPOLITAN FUND TO SUPPORT HEALTH INNOVATIONS LINKED TO THE COVID-19 HEALTH CRISIS WITH € 1M
This fund was created during the health crisis to support research and innovation projects including treatments, tests, protective equipment or any other health-related project as defined by the World Health Organization, namely "a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being," which includes innovation in a number of sectors, including health & digital, health & food and health & materials. It is aimed at generating tools, services or means to limit the spread of the virus; to support the deconfinement of the population or acting in a preventive manner by aiming to limit the contamination risks (transport, food, etc.).