BioCentury
ARTICLE | Product Development

Monkey rechallenge data provide COVID-19 neutralizing antibody benchmark for vaccine developers

May 22, 2020 1:49 AM UTC

As IMV and Vaxart prepare to advance their COVID-19 vaccine candidates into the clinic, monkey data from a Harvard-led team provide not only evidence of protective immunity following COVID-19 resolution, but also an antibody benchmark for vaccine developers to meet or beat.

At least two COVID-19 vaccine developers have reported neutralizing antibody titers from immunized non-human primates: Sinovac Biotech Ltd. (NASDAQ:SVA) for PiCoVacc; and the University of Oxford for AZD1222 (formerly ChAdOx1 nCoV-19), which AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NYSE:AZN) licensed on April 30. Sinovac reported prechallenge mean neutralizing titers of 50 in a high dose group and 61 in a medium dose group; Oxford reported titers of 5-40 (see “Comparing Monkey Data” and “With AZ Deal, Operation Warp Speed Takes First Step”)...