Covid-19 – A vaccine planned in the form of a patch will be tested in Lausanne – lematin.ch

The university center of general and public medicine, Unisanté, will test a new generation vaccine against Covid from January 3. Approved by Swissmedic, the tests will be carried out in Lausanne with the collaboration of the Clinical Research Center (CRC) of the CHUV-UNIL and the Immunology and Allergy Department of the CHUV. This trial comes four months after the launch in Lausanne of a study to assess the safety of a new generation vaccine against dengue, which uses the same technology as that against Covid which will be the subject of this test by Unisanté. .

Unlike conventional vaccines which instead stimulate the production of antibodies, the PepGNP-Covid19 vaccine, designed in England by Emergex Vaccines, relies on T lymphocytes, responsible for cellular immunity, to eliminate cells infected by the virus and prevent ‘he replies, explains Unisanté in a press release Thursday.

Unisanté was commissioned by Emergex for a phase I clinical study lasting six months. It must determine whether the vaccine does not induce severe undesirable side effects in healthy people. Some 26 volunteers will participate. They will receive the vaccine on the arm using microneedles less than a millimeter deep, with the aim of developing a microneedle patch. The first results are expected in June 2022. If clinical trials are successful, the Emergex vaccine will be available no earlier than 2025.

This new technology offers real hope, says Unisanté. The vaccine indeed has the potential to provide long-lasting immunity against Covid-19. It is also better suited to potential viral mutations.

For Blaise Genton, head of the study at Unisanté, the vaccine is intended to be a complementary weapon in the arsenal of the fight against Covid. “In anticipation of a probable persistence of the virus over the next few years and the possibility of the appearance of new variants less sensitive to current vaccines, it is necessary to develop different technologies,” he explains. The new product also addresses the need to train long-term immunity that avoids seasonal boosters.

It should be noted that, since the start of the pandemic, projects to vaccinate against Covid-19 using patches have multiplied, testifying to a movement that could well revolutionize the way in which vaccines will be administered in the future. A study on mice, published Friday in the journal “Science Advances”, revealed promising results. Australian researchers used a 1 cm by 1 cm plastic patch with more than 5,000 tiny peaks on its surface. These tips have been coated with the vaccine, which is deposited on the skin when it penetrates it. The antibody response was very strong, including in the lungs.