Kaneka strengthens efforts to manufacture COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate

Kaneka Eurogentec S.A. (Headquarters: Liège, Belgium), an affiliate of Kaneka Corporation (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo), signed an agreement with INOVIO Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Headquarters: Pennsylvania, US) to manufacture COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate, INO-4800.

INOVIO is a biotechnology company focused on rapidly bringing to market DNA medicines to treat and protect people from infectious diseases and cancer, and is developing COVID-19 vaccine candidate, INO-4800, using plasmid DNA as a drug substance.  INOVIO has received clearance from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA)  to proceed with the Phase 2 segment of its planned Phase 2/3 clinical trial for INO-4800, which will be supported financially by the U.S. Department of Defense.  INOVIO is putting in place a global consortium to manufacture INO-4800 with the goal of producing hundreds of millions of INO-4800 doses for worldwide distribution.  Kaneka Eurogentec has joined to the INOVIO’s global consortium to manufacture large-scale of the INO-4800 drug substance in their GMP manufacturing facility using their world-class technology in plasmid DNA.

Kaneka has launched the “Infection Research Team” for promoting research and development of measures against infection such as COVID-19.  KANEKA is taking a wide range of countermeasures to provide solutions for COVID-19 crisis, including the manufacturing mRNA and plasmid DNA as drug substance of vaccines, the supplying of drug substance for “Avigan®”, and the supplying of PCR reagents and test kits.  Kaneka will continue to utilize its own technologies to provide the solutions necessary for infection control measures.

URL：Eurogentec.com