Medicago Begins Phase I Clinical Trials for its COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate
Medicago, a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City, began Phase I clinical trials for its plant-derived COVID-19 vaccine candidate yesterday, administering the first doses in healthy human volunteers. Medicago is also planning a Phase 2/3 trial to be initiated this October.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200714005585/en/
Vial of a vaccine candidate. (Photo: Business Wire)
“We are thrilled to see our COVID-19 vaccine candidate enter the Phase 1 trial, and we look forward to obtaining safety and immunogenicity results in October,” said Nathalie Landry, Executive Vice-President, Scientific and Medical Affairs at Medicago. “Our progress continues to demonstrate the value of Medicago’s unique plant-based vaccine technology.”
The Phase I clinical trial is a randomized, partially blinded study of 180 normal healthy subjects, male and female aged 18-55, and will evaluate dosages of 3.75, 7.5 or 15 micrograms of the recombinant Coronavirus Virus-Like Particle (CoVLP) vaccine candidate alone or with an adjuvant in a prime-boost regimen. Medicago will be testing its vaccine candidate with two adjuvants separately – GSK’s proprietary pandemic adjuvant technology and Dynavax’s CpG 1018™. An adjuvant can be of particular importance in a pandemic situation as it may boost the immune response and reduce the amount of antigen required per dose, allowing more vaccine doses to be produced and therefore contributing to protect the greatest number of people.
Medicago’s innovative platform and plant-based manufacturing technology is helping to diversify the pool of COVID-19 vaccines in development.
“Creating a sufficient supply of COVID-19 vaccines within the next year is a challenge which will require multiple approaches, with different technologies,” said Dr. Bruce Clark, President and CEO of Medicago. “Our proven plant-based technology is capable of contributing to the collective solution to this public health emergency.”
Medicago expects to be able to manufacture approximately 100 million doses by the end of 2021. By the end of 2023, the construction of Medicago’s large-scale facility in Quebec City, Canada, will be completed. It is anticipated that this commercial facility will have the capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine annually.
Medicago is the only company with plant-based manufacturing technology that has completed Phase III clinical trials (with its quadrivalent VLP influenza vaccine candidate) and pandemic Phase II clinical trials (with its H1N1 pandemic vaccine candidate). The company’s first New Drug Submission for its seasonal recombinant quadrivalent VLP vaccine for active immunization against influenza in adults (18-64 years), is currently under review by Health Canada following the completion of a robust safety and efficacy clinical program in over 25,000 subjects.
In addition to its clinical development capabilities, Medicago has also demonstrated its capacity to produce a large amount of vaccines in a short period of time, with the production in 2012 of 10 million doses of monovalent pandemic influenza H1N1 vaccines in one month for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Medicago’s plant-based platform
The company uses a proprietary plant-based technology to develop vaccines and protein-based therapeutics. Unlike traditional vaccination development, Medicago does not use animal products or live viruses to create its products. Instead, it uses Virus-Like Particles (VLPs) that mimic the shape and dimensions of a virus, which allows the body to recognize them and create an immune response in a non-infectious way. Clinical trial data suggest that VLPs have a multi-modal mechanism of action that is different from that of inactivated vaccines, activating both arms of the immune system – antibody and cell-mediated responses.
Medicago’s proprietary technology is rapid, versatile, and scalable. As soon as the genetic sequence of a virus is made available, Medicago can develop a clinical-grade vaccine candidate in only a few weeks. Its recombinant technology allows the production of a vaccine that precisely matches the circulating strains, such as in the case of seasonal influenza. The technology is easily scalable, allowing the company to increase volume of production by simply increasing the number of plants it uses.
Facilities
Medicago is headquartered in Quebec City, Canada, and plans to produce COVID-19 vaccines in its manufacturing facility in Durham, North Carolina (USA) and in its Quebec pilot plant. A new state-of-the-art manufacturing plant is under construction in Quebec City, and is planned to have the capacity to deliver up to 1 billion COVID-19 vaccines annually.
About Medicago
Medicago is a biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Quebec City with productions sites in Quebec, Canada and Durham, North Carolina, USA. Medicago’s mission is to improve global health outcomes by leveraging innovative plant-based technologies for rapid responses to emerging global health challenges. Medicago is committed to advancing therapeutics against life-threatening diseases worldwide.
For more information: www.medicago.com
To view this piece of content from cts.businesswire.com, please give your consent at the top of this page.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200714005585/en/
Contact information
Media contact (English)
Alissa Von Bargen
+1-647-234-5975
Alissa.VonBargen@gcicanada.com
Media contact (French)
Marie-Pier Côté
+ 1-418-999-4847
mpcote@tactconseil.ca
About Business Wire
For more than 50 years, Business Wire has been the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure.
Subscribe to releases from Business Wire
Subscribe to all the latest releases from Business Wire by registering your e-mail address below. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Latest releases from Business Wire
EIG Acquires a 49.87% Stake in Transportadora de Gas del Perú (TgP)19.12.2025 19:42:00 EET | Press release
EIG, through its managed investment vehicles, acquired a 49.87% equity stake in Transportadora de Gas del Perú S.A. (“TgP”) from Canada Pension Plan Investment Board today. TgP operates Peru’s principal natural gas and natural gas liquids pipelines under a long-term concession, supplying approximately 40% of the country’s power generation. “We are delighted to complete this transaction and embark on the next chapter of our partnership with TgP,” said Matt Hartman, EIG’s Global Head of Infrastructure. “Our priority is to support TgP’s operational excellence and long-term stability, delivering value for customers and stakeholders throughout Peru.” About EIG EIG is a leading institutional investor in the global energy and infrastructure sectors with $24.3 billion assets under management as of September 30, 2025. EIG specializes in private investments in energy and energy-related infrastructure on a global basis. During its 43-year history, EIG has committed over $51.7 billion to the energ
CyberArk Named a Leader in IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Integrated Solutions for Identity Security 202519.12.2025 18:00:00 EET | Press release
CyberArk (NASDAQ: CYBR), the global leader in identity security, today announced that it has been recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Integrated Solutions for Identity Security 2025 Vendor Assessment. CyberArk extends dynamic privilege controls across all identity types with its unified platform, enabling organizations to improve efficiencies and streamline security operations. This IDC MarketScape report notes, “More change has occurred in the identity security marketplace in the past two years than in almost a decade. Vendors are entering a new phase defined by the emergence of intelligence technologies, none of which are specifically defined by any industry standards. Though different by design, the new adjacent IAM offerings are largely focused on improved vulnerability and threat management visibility and automated and predictive attack detection capabilities.” It also notes, “By addressing these evolving identity types within a unified framework, CyberArk enh
New York Liberty and Ant International’s Alipay+ Announce Multiyear Partnership Focused on Empowerment, Sustainability and Youth Development19.12.2025 15:30:00 EET | Press release
The New York Liberty and Ant International’s Alipay+, a leading cross-border fintech services platform based in Singapore, today announced a multiyear partnership, making Alipay+ an Official Sponsor and Innovation Partner for Sustainability of the New York Liberty. Through this partnership, Alipay+ and the Liberty will jointly support community programs designed to advance community empowerment, environmental sustainability and youth development across New York City. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251219678825/en/ Peng Yang, CEO, Ant International and Clara Wu Tsai, Vice Chair, Brooklyn Sports and Entertainment; Governor, New York Liberty “Our partnership with Alipay+ goes beyond the game,” said Keia Clarke, Chief Executive Officer, New York Liberty. “Together, we are investing in the future of New York—its people, its environment, and its youth. Ant International’s commitment to community empowerment, sustai
Parse Biosciences and Codebreaker Labs Partner to Apply Whole Transcriptome Single Cell Profiling and Causal Genomics at Scale19.12.2025 15:00:00 EET | Press release
Parse Biosciences, the leading provider of scalable and accessible single cell sequencing solutions, today announced a collaboration with Codebreaker Labs to develop and validate a breakthrough platform capable of testing thousands of genetic variants in parallel and measuring their effects at single cell resolution. By combining Codebreaker’s synthetic biology platform and variant engineering capabilities with the scale and accessibility of Parse’s Evercode™ technology, the collaboration aims to generate the causal data increasingly sought by AI developers, drug discovery teams, and clinical researchers. Today’s genomic studies rely heavily on observational data, or variants that appear in large populations. But rare and private variants, often only seen in one individual or family, are nearly impossible to study this way because too few carriers of the variant exist to draw statistically meaningful conclusions. As a result, even the most advanced models trained on observational datas
Cyviz Awarded Two Classified NATO Defense Contracts19.12.2025 09:00:00 EET | Press release
Norwegian technology and platform company Cyviz AS has been awarded two classified defense contracts by major European NATO-partner nations to deliver a fully mobile, containerised Command & Control (C2) capability, strengthening Europe’s operational readiness in high-threat and expeditionary environments. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251218625485/en/ Image from a previous military exercise where Cyviz demonstrated a mobile command center solution. The contracts cover the design, integration, and delivery of secure, deployable operations centres engineered to NATO security standards, enabling military and security forces to establish full theatre-class command capability wherever operations require. Due to the sensitive nature of the missions, contract value and customer identities remain undisclosed. From Demonstrated Readiness to Operational Deployment The awards follow growing interest among European def
In our pressroom you can read all our latest releases, find our press contacts, images, documents and other relevant information about us.
Visit our pressroom