Meissa says preliminary data from Phase 1 trial of its intranasal COVID-19 vaccine look promising

Meissa Vaccines has announced that interim data from a Phase 1 study of its MV-014-212 intranasal recombinant live attenuated COVID-19 vaccine demonstrate that a single dose produced a good nasal IgA response with no reported safety issues. In July 2020, the company said that the Phase 1 trial had begun dosing subjects. According to the new announcement, the interim analysis involved 49 subjects and the trial is continuing to enroll healthy adults aged 18-69 who have not previously received a COVID-19 vaccine.

The company previously announced the results of preclinical studies which found that MV-014-212 stimulated both systemic and mucosal antibodies in non-human primates with efficacy similar to vaccines that were already available.

Meissa CEO Martin Moore commented, “We need an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine to block transmission, prevent infections, and control SARS-CoV-2 spread and variants, and a live attenuated vaccine is the best approach for intranasal delivery. Conventional live attenuated vaccine approaches have always had to sacrifice immunogenicity to reduce virulence. With our AttenuBlock platform, we’ve unlinked them and can separately turn up immunogenicity and turn down virulence to create live attenuated vaccines that are designed to stimulate a natural immune response and be safe for all ages, from adults to infants.”

Chief Medical Officer Robert Walker said, “The preliminary clinical data indicate a single, adjuvant-free, needle-free dose of Meissa’s COVID-19 intranasal vaccine can stimulate a nasal IgA antibody response similar to that seen after SARS-CoV-2 infection, with an important difference – safety. The initial safety data from this trial combined with our preclinical COVID-19 data and clinical data from Meissa’s RSV vaccine candidate, which was also built on the AttenuBlock platform, support continued clinical development of MV-014-212. We will continue to advance Meissa’s COVID-19 intranasal vaccine in this Phase 1 clinical trial in adults, and we plan to evaluate it as a booster to complement injectable vaccines and initiate a Phase 1 pediatric study next year.”

Meissa is also developing an intranasal RSV vaccine (MV-012-968) The company says that a Phase 1c trial of that vaccine is underway in pediatric subjects and that a Phase 1b study in children aged 15 to 59 months demonstrated that the vaccine was well tolerated and properly attenuated.

Read the Meissa Vaccines press release.