Symvivo Corporation Receives Funding for COVID-19 Vaccine Program

Symvivo Corporation announced that it is receiving advisory services and funding of up to $2.8 million from the National Research Council Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) to support the clinical advancement of bacTRL-Spike, the company’s oral, room temperature-stable DNA vaccine candidate for the prevention of COVID-19.

The funding follows a notification Symvivo received from the Government of Canada indicating it had reviewed Symvivo’s proposal and its bacTRL-Spike vaccine candidate had met the required scientific and technical thresholds for funding.

“We are excited to receive this important funding from NRC IRAP for the development of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate,” said Alexander Graves, president and CEO of Symvivo Corporation. “It is our hope that the promise shown with bacTRL-Spike in preclinical models, particularly its ability to generate a mucosal immune response, will continue in first-in-human trials. We are grateful to the NRC for supporting further investigation of bacTRL-Spike as we initiate our first Phase I trial of the vaccine candidate this quarter.”

Unlike traditional vaccines, bacTRL-Spike is a capsule that can be taken orally, allowing individuals to self-administer the vaccine rather than requiring a trained medical professional to deliver it with an injection. In addition, the capsules can also be stored at room temperature.