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This is what the vaccine patch that the British company Emergex wants to offer could look like
Photo: Latch Medical
The British biotech company Emergex has received approval for clinical tests on a T-cell vaccine that is to be administered through a skin patch.
The company announced.
The British newspaper "The Guardian" reported on it first.
The Swiss Medicines Agency granted the company permission to carry out initial experiments on humans.
26 people will receive the new vaccine in a randomized, double-blind study.
The studies are to begin on January 3rd, with interim results expected in June.
"This is the first time a regulatory agency has approved a Covid vaccine for clinical trials whose sole purpose is to generate a targeted T-cell response in the absence of an antibody response," said Robin Cohen, manager at Emergex .
The company has been developing T cell vaccines since 2016.
Other manufacturers have also been following this approach for a long time.
Not the antibodies, but only the T cells are supposed to provide immune protection
Unlike conventional Covid vaccines, which produce an antibody response, this vaccine is designed to stimulate the T cells in the body to find and remove cells infected with the virus.
This would prevent the virus from multiplying - and, accordingly, the disease.
The scientists hope that the immune response triggered by the T-cell vaccination could last longer than with the current vaccines.
The need for booster vaccinations could be eliminated.
The Covid vaccines currently in use result in the production of antibodies that attach to the virus and prevent it from infecting cells.
They also trigger a T-cell response, but to a lesser extent.
Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London, has doubts as to whether a T-cell vaccine "can do the job on its own," according to the Guardian report. However, such a vaccine could play a complementary role in a mix-and-match approach in which different vaccines would be administered for the first, second and third dose. mRNA vaccines like the one from Biontech / Pfizer worked so well precisely because they produced a strong neutralizing antibody response, he said. However, a T-cell vaccine could be used as a complement to other vaccinations, as T-cell vaccines may be less sensitive to virus mutations. “Antibodies are very sensitive to mutations, while T cells can recognize many other parts of the virus.Maybe that's a selling point for T-cell vaccines. "
"Patient-friendly" microneedles
The vaccine is to be administered by Emergex via a thumbnail-sized skin patch that is equipped with microneedles.
The dose is supposed to be released via these microneedles within seconds - the company described this procedure as "more patient-friendly".
The vaccine can be kept for up to three months at room temperature.
However, the vaccine will not be available until 2025 at the earliest, wrote the Guardian.
This corresponds to the usual timeframe for vaccine development.
The extreme urgency that led to an acceleration of the approval process in the development of the first Covid vaccines no longer exists.
Emergex is also currently testing a T-cell vaccine against dengue fever in a separate study.
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