The Singapore Health Sciences Authority has approved clinical trials for a coronavirus vaccine candidate being developed by Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS School of Medicine.
Arcturus, a biopharmaceutical company based in San Diego, California, in association with Duke-NUS of Singapore, said they will begin human dosage testing as soon as possible.
In a joint statement, the company and the medical school said the voluntary study would include up to 108 adults and would examine various dose levels.
Before the Arcturus and Duke-NUS announcement, there were more than 140 candidate vaccines under preclinical evaluation and 24 under clinical evaluation, according to the World Health Organization.
In their preclinical data, the researchers found that a single dose of 0.2, 2, or 10 micrograms resulted in neutralizing antibodies that continued to rise for 50 days. They tested the antibodies in mouse serum every 10 days after vaccination for a period of 60 days.
Professor Ooi Eng Eong, deputy director of the emerging infectious disease program at Duke-NUS, said in a statement, citing preliminary data, that “a single dose of this vaccine may be sufficient to trigger robust and long-lasting immune responses.”
Arcturus President and CEO Joseph Payne similarly suggested, citing preclinical data, “a single potential administration, at very low doses” triggers an immune response.
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