Variants of coronavirus have emerged around the world, and people are worried that eventually a variant may render current vaccine ineffective. Another concern is that COVID-19 may re-occur like seasonal flu even after the pandemic tapers off. Thus, many pharmaceutical companies have started to develop the second-generation COVID vaccine, hoping to enhance the basic protection provided by the current vaccine against the variants of concern. CHO Pharma utilized exclusive patented homogeneous glycan technology CHOptimax™ to successfully produce an universal vaccine CHO-V10. Mice tests have shown that two dose of CHO-V10 vaccine could induced high titer high-affinity neutralizing antibody against original strain (SARS-CoV-2), D614G, UK variant, and South Africa variant (B.1.351 /501Y.V2). Virus neutralization titer IC90 of the mouse serum reached 3,200x to 6,400x, and IC50 is 12,800x to 25,600x or more. CHO-V10 showed excellent protection against different variant of concern.

Currently, CHO-V10 is about to enter vaccine challenge test and toxicology test. We are also planning GMP mass production of the vaccine. Also, this vaccine development has been selected for “CDE can help: COVID-19 special science counseling”. We will keep close contact with CDE to formulate vaccine development strategy and hope to enter human clinical trial soon. As the global pharmaceutical companies pursuing the second generation COVID-19 vaccine to deal with emerging variants and possible seasonal reoccurrences, CHO Pharma hopes to expedite the development of this domestic vaccine and to contribute to stop the spread of COVID in Taiwan.

CHO Pharma (TWSE: 6586) was funded in March 2013 by Diamond Biofund, Inc. Genomic Research Center, Academia Sinica joined the company by technology shares in the form of innovative glycan technology platform, including patented technology in glycoprotein, carbohydrate-based vaccine, glyco-probe, and glycan microarray.