Benzinga | Sep 16, 2020 05:47AM EDT

Applied DNA and Takis Biotech/Evvivax to Launch Clinical Trial for Veterinary Use of Linear COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate

Applied DNA Sciences, Inc. (NASDAQ:APDN) today announced that it and Evvivax, S.R.L., a spin-out of Takis Biotech focused on engineered veterinary immunotherapy and vaccines, are expected to initiate a veterinary clinical trial of one of the Company's five LineaDNA(tm) vaccine candidates upon approval of the clinical plan by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The goal of the vaccine trial is to evaluate the vaccine candidate as a strategy for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) (a zoonotic disease) infections in companion felines of humans. The clinical trial will seek to understand the immune response in cats by utilizing a vaccination strategy of interest in people that could yield valuable data for both cats and humans.

In addition to curbing feline SARS-CoV-2 infections, the vaccine may have a secondary benefit of preventing transfer of the SARS-CoV-2 virus from cats to their human owners. While no such transfer has been formally documented to date, there is still much that is unknown about the disease and its transmission across species. The vaccine trial also serves the additional purpose of generating data on larger animals required as part of the Company's preclinical development work on its vaccine candidates for potential human development.