MediciNova Takes a Big Step in the Fight Against COVID-19

Health and Healthcare

Published: September 23, 2020 11:09 am

MediciNova Inc. (NASDAQ: MNOV) has announced progress in its COVID-19 vaccine prototype, which stands out from the rest as it is administered intranasally. The company’s shares jumped on Wednesday as a result.

Specifically, the firm announced that its intranasal SARS-CoV-2 vaccine prototype for COVID-19, using BC-PIV technology, successfully induced systemic serum IgG and mucosal IgA neutralizing antibodies against the S1 antigen of SARS-CoV-2 in mice.

These successful results support the scientific and technical rationale of the intranasal vaccine, in addition to similar success with BioComo’s BC-PIV RSV vaccine prototype.

The vaccine prototype has proven highly efficient in its ability to transfer multiple foreign proteins to recipients. It also has a strong safety profile as no secondary infectious virus was produced.

BC-PIV is designed to display not only the gene but also the foreign protein itself on the surface and inside of the viral membrane. Therefore, it can carry the large membrane proteins of viruses and signal transduction receptors/ligand proteins on the viral surface. The BC-PIV SARS-CoV-2 vaccine prototype has been developed to include the specific SARS-CoV-2 antigen protein in order to express maximum antigenicity.

Management stated that it was very encouraged by the intranasal vaccine and the results from the mouse model study. Again management is looking forward to reporting additional progress on its intranasal COVID-19 vaccine in the near future.

Excluding Wednesday’s move, MediciNova stock had underperformed the broad markets with about an 18% year-to-date retreat. In the past 52 weeks, the share price was down closer to 29%.

MediciNova stock traded up about 14% on Wednesday, at $6.33 in a 52-week range of $2.79 to $13.25. The consensus price target is $18.50.

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