Institut Pasteur Korea – Genexine Sign MOU for Global Clinical Trials for the COVID-19 Vaccine

– To test efficacy of Genexine’s GX-19N against the SARS-CoV-2 variants in overseas including South Africa –

 April 12, 2021, GYEONGDO-DO, Rep. of Korea - The Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) and the Genexine signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) for mutual collaboration in global clinical trials of the GX-19N, the COVID-19 DNA vaccine candidate under development by Genexine.
The MOU signing ceremony was attended by IPK CEO Dr. Youngmee Jee and Genexine CEO Dr. Young-Chul Sung.
IPK and Genexine will join forces together to test the protective efficacy of the GX-19N in the regions such as South Africa, where variants mainly appear, utilizing the international collaboration network of Institut Pasteur Korea. The GX-19N has been designed to protect against the variants of SARS-CoV-2 through broad and strong T cell immunity.
This collaboration is promoted by the “Global infectious disease network through GloPID-R,” a project supported by the Korean Ministry of Science and ICT. The project aims to validate the protective efficacy of GX-19N against the SARS-CoV-2 variants through non-clinical study and leverage the international network of IPK for IND application for Phase 2/3 clinical studies in the regions where variants mainly appear, such as South Africa.
IPK, in collaboration with Genexine, will build an international network optimized for the global clinical trials of GX-19N by utilizing its proven capabilities for designing overseas clinical studies as well as its worldwide scientific collaborations that include the Institut Pasteur International Network and the Global Virus Network (GVN). Pioneering at drug repositioning, IPK discovered COVID-19 drug candidates and has been conducting international clinical trials in Senegal, Mexico, Australia, and so forth.
Recent studies from around the world show that the SARS-CoV-2 variants weaken the efficacy of the existing vaccines. The GX-19N, equipped the nucleocapsid antigen with high sequence integrity in addition to the spike antigen of the SARS-CoV-2, is expected to show protective efficacy against both SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. Genexine has completed Phase 1 clinical trials in Korea in February and entered Phase 2a targeting 150 healthy adults, and submitted IND for Phase 2/3 clinical studies to Indonesia last month.
IPK CEO Dr. Youngmee Jee said, “Efforts to respond promptly to the variants are critical to achieving global herd immunity, for which overseas clinical trial is one of the strategies taking into account the domestic status of the COVID-19 variants,” and added, “In collaboration with Genexine, we will strive to develop COVID-19 vaccines effective against the variants and contribute in ending the pandemic.”
Genexine Chairman Dr. Young-Chul Sung said, “The support from IPK enables us to promote clinical trials in the regions, such as South Africa, where variants and mutants appear,” and added, “We will successfully develop the GX-19N and prove its protective efficacy against the SARS-CoV-2 and its variants.”

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