Covid-19 drugs and treatments being made in Australia
Aussie scientists are leading the way with ingenious new vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 which even include pineapple-eating pigs.
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Exclusive: Scientific breakthroughs usually take decades but just 16 months since Covid-19 emerged Australian scientists have Covid vaccines and nasal sprays in clinical trials, they’ve identified potential treatments and clever new ways of testing if vaccines are working.
VAXINE’S COVID VACCINE
This vaccine based on a protein produced in insect cells has been successfully tested in phase two human trials in Iran in 400 volunteers and phase three studies are about to commence.
Developed by Flinders University’s Professor Nikolai Petrovsky the vaccine is expected to receive regulatory approval for use overseas in September or October later this year and Indian companies are on board to produce hundreds of millions of doses.
Iranian private company CinnaGen has put up the money for the trials after the Australian Government showed little interest.
It is expected to be deployed in regions like Africa, South America, Africa, Middle East, Eastern Europe, South America, Central America.
The trial results have not been published but Professor Petrovsky said the vaccine worked against all the variants of Covid.
“It’s the leading Australian candidate by a long shot, we’re not aware of any other Australian candidate even in human trials, let alone in final stage trials,” he said.
“We expect to leave everyone in our dust including the mRNA. This is going to blow away everyone,” he said.
The Vaxine product is the most developed of all the Australian Covid-19 vaccines. All others are yet to commence human clinical trials.
This project received $1 million in government funding.
AUSTRALIA’S MRNA VACCINE
An Australian mRNA vaccine against Covid is being developed by Monash University’s Professor Colin Pouton with clinical trials expected to begin in October.
Similar to the Pfizer and Moderna Professor Pouton’s team is already testing versions to beat the Kappa, Delta and Beta variants in mice.
The Monash jab is part of an attempt to set up mRNA vaccine production plant in Australia.
The mRNA vaccine will be trialled in 150 people in conjunction with a second protein based Covid vaccine developed by the Doherty Institute with preliminary results expected to be available in the first half of 2022.
The Victorian Government has contributed $50 million towards establishing an mRNA manufacturing plant in the state and $5 million will support Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (MIPS) to manufacture doses of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccine for trials
Minister for Innovation, Medical Research and the Digital Economy, Jaala Pulford said the proposed manufacturing plant could have applications beyond vaccines.
“There is an opportunity that exists in cancer treatment is to be able to provide cancer therapeutics to patients that are patient specific, so a bespoke treatment for a particular tumor,” she said.
A Belgian company will make the mRNA vaccine overseas for the October clinical trial and a local pharmaceutical manufacturer in Australia will do some of the formulation, packaging and vial filling here.
UNIVERSITY QUEENSLAND VACCINE
The University of Queensland’s Covid-19 vaccine was spectacularly dumped in December last year after trial participants returned false positive HIV tests.
The team went back to the drawing board and is currently screening a series of new vaccine candidates looking for the strongest performers and studying immune responses to the candidates in mice.
“We’ve gone back and changed to something not related to any human virus, but has the same features that we want in creating that highly stable vaccine candidate,” The University’s Project Director Professor Trent Munro said .
“We’re encouraged by what we’re seeing so far,” Professor Munro said.
The group hopes to begin human clinical trials 12 months from now.
University Queensland vaccine patch
We could soon be self-administering our own Covid vaccines without the need for a needle using a Covid vaccine patch developed by University Queensland scientists.
It has proven to be more effective than a needle at preventing Covid in mice, only a single dose was required and it works against multiple Covid types including the more infectious UK and South Africa variants.
University of Queensland scientists are looking for funding to take the vaccine patch to human clinical trials. If successful, it could be on the market within two years.
“You take the applicator. Take off a foil seal, press it to the arm, it goes click and you leave it on for 10 seconds and you remove it and you are vaccinated.” said UQ researcher Dr David Muller.
The patch delivers the vaccine into the skin using 5000 microscopic projections that cause no pain.
It could speed up vaccine delivery eliminating the need for vaccine appointments.
The vaccine is stable at up to 25 degrees Celsius for a month, making it much easier to distribute in areas where refrigeration can be difficult.
Before it can be trialled in humans scientists will have to carry out toxicity studies in mice to check the vaccine is not toxic to animals.
NASAL SPRAYS
An Australian nasal spray that not only stops COVID-19 but also prevents the common cold and influenza has begun human clinical trials in Sydney.
Developed by Australian biotech company Ena Respiratory, INNA-051 works by stimulating the innate immune system, the body’s first line of defence against viruses and other germs.
Trials in ferrets showed it was 96 per cent effective at preventing the virus that causes COVID-19 replicating in the nose. The research is yet to be peer reviewed.
The advantage of the spray is it works regardless of the variants of the virus in circulation.
Patients spray the product into their nose before, or shortly after, exposure to a virus, prompting the body to protect them from illness and reduce the chance of community spread
The innate immune responses targeted by the nasal spray are triggered within 48 hours after a person has been exposed to the virus so it works much faster than a vaccine.
ENA Respiratory recently secured $32 million funding from Brandon Capital Partners and leading philanthropic organisation, Minderoo Foundation, with co-investment from Australian university venture fund, Uniseed, to support the clinical development of INNA-051.
It is hoping to have the product on the market by next year.
Faster way to test if vaccines work
Trying to figure out whether a vaccine actually produces an immune response can take a long time and hold up the quick development of new products.
Kirby Institute researcher Dr Deborah Cromer and researchers from the Peter Doherty Institute the University of Sydney have identified a new way to measure vaccine protection.
It has the potential to dramatically cut development times for new vaccines, by measuring neutralising antibody levels as a ‘proxy’ for immune protection from COVID-19.
The new test will also help determine how long immunity lasts after we get a Covid-19 vaccine.
PINEAPPLE EATING PIG INSPIRED TREATMENT
In August last year in the midst of Melbourne’s second lockdown Sydney cancer specialist Professor David Morris was preparing to start clinical trials of a nasal spray inspired by pineapple eating pigs.
Research showed an hour after being administered the treatment made up of Bromelain derived from pineapple stems and the drug acetylcysteine the Covid-19 virus was not able to infect cells.
However, Melbourne’s Covid outbreak ended before the trial could start.
Not to be defeated Professor Morris repurposed the chemical into a treatment for Covid-19 patients stuck on ventilators.
Clinical trials have commenced in Brazil and the idea is the drug will break up the sticky sputum blocking their lungs making it hard for them to breathe.
This, coupled with the drugs anti-viral effects it should lead to improvement.
“We nebulize the drug into the airway, and we’ve already done that in animals with good results,” Professor Morris said.
There is already a large pharmaceutical company that’s interested in the research and phase two clinical trials of the cancer application of the drug are about to start.
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