IMV To Develop Vaccine Candidate Against COVID-19, Shares Up

IMV Inc. (TSX:IMV) announced that it plans to start the clinical development of a DPX-based vaccine candidate for the treatment of the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). The DPX-COVID-19 vaccine will be made using its DPX technology platform.

The company plans to develop its vaccine candidate DPX-COVID-19 and begin its phase I clinical study in collaboration with lead investigators.

Per the company, the aim of this development program is to establish the clinical safety and immunogenicity of a vaccine candidate based on IMV’s lipid-based delivery platform, DPX technology, and incorporate peptides targeting novel epitopes from the coronavirus strain. The company claims that this peptide-based approach in combination with the DPX platform has the potential for an accelerated development and large-scale production of a vaccine to prevent the COVID-19.

Shares of IMV were up 13.3% following this announcement on Wednesday. However, the stock has lost 43.2% in the past year compared with the industry’s decline of 32.4%.

We note that COVID-19 already infected more than 200,000 people and the death toll crossed 8,700, globally. In the United States, the virus has infected more than 8,000 people and claimed 146 lives. Although new cases of coronavirus significantly dropped in China — the epicenter of the outbreak — the infection is spreading rapidly to other countries, especially in Europe. Cases of coronavirus infection in Italy, Iran and South Korea rose to 35,713, 17,361 and 8,565, respectively, per the latest Bloomberg article update.

Several pharma/biotech companies are actively involved in developing a vaccine for COVID-19 including J&J (NYSE:JNJ) and Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO) . With this health menace persistently on the rise, speedy development of vaccines is the need of the hour with the WHO already declaring the disease a global pandemic.

Earlier this month, Emergent BioSolutions (NYSE:EBS) initiated the development of two product candidates for treating and preventing COVID-19. The company is developing the two candidates to leverage its hyperimmune platforms.

The accelerated development of COVID-19 vaccine will help save more lives and stop the spread of this dreadful disease across the globe. We are upbeat about the vaccine development as several companies along with global authorities are coordinating to invent a treatment as early as possible to treat this deadly virus.

Zacks Rank

IMV currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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