Novavax Announces Successful Production of MERS-CoV Vaccine Candidate

Novavax, Inc. NVAX announced today that it had successfully produced a vaccine candidate designed to provide protection against the recently emerging Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The vaccine candidate, which was made using Novavax' recombinant nanoparticle vaccine technology, is based on the major surface spike (S) protein. The Company believes that its MERS-CoV vaccine candidate may provide a path forward for a vaccine for this emerging threat. MERS-CoV is a novel coronavirus first identified in September 2012 by an Egyptian virologist, who isolated the previously unknown coronavirus from the lungs of a 60-year-old patient with pneumonia and renal failure. To date, the World Health Organization (WHO) has reported a total of 53 laboratory-confirmed cases of infection with MERS-CoV, including 30 deaths. The newly emergent virus is a part of the coronavirus family that includes the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV), first recognized as a global threat in March 2003 and by July 2003, had resulted in 8,098 SARS cases in 26 countries, with 774 deaths. Novavax had previously produced a recombinant nanoparticle vaccine candidate for the SARS-CoV virus which was similarly based on its major surface S protein. Novavax' SARS-CoV vaccine See full press release