AEI Clients in the COVID-19 Fight: University of Wisconsin-Madison
UW-Madison, FluGen, Bharat Biotech to develop CoroFlu, a coronavirus vaccine.
Virologists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison (UW-Madison) and vaccine companies FluGen and Bharat Biotech have initiated the development and testing of a unique vaccine against COVID-19. The vaccine, called CoroFlu, builds on FluGen vaccine advances invented by UW-Madison virologists and FluGen co-founders Yoshihiro Kawaoka and Gabriele Neumann.
Pre-clinical testing of CoroFlu at UW-Madison is expected to take three to six months. Bharat Biotech will conduct production scale-up for safety and efficacy testing in humans, with a possible fall 2020 start to human clinical trials. Mimicking the natural route of infection by coronavirus and influenza, and inducing multiple types of immune responses, CoroFlu will be delivered intranasally. Bharat Biotech will produce the vaccine for global distribution, with the capability to produce almost 300 million doses per year.