Akers Biosciences Inc AKER shares gap-opened higher Monday and were trading with handsome gains.
The catalyst that is driving the stock higher is an update from the company regarding its COVID-19 vaccine development program.
The New Jersey-based company said its collaboration with Premas Biotech has completed the milestone of obtaining the clones of all coronavirus antigens — spike, envelop and membrane — that have been selected for the vaccine candidate.
The companies said the ability to clone all three antigens will differentiate its vaccine candidate from others.
"We are providing the immune system with three shots on goal, instead of one, by including S, E, and M together," Prabuddha Kundu, co-founder and managing director at Premas Biotech, said in a statement.
Including three at a time will help overcome the shortcoming of the vaccine being rendered non-efficacious if a protein mutates, according to the companies; the immune system can still recognize the other two antigens.
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"We believe that we are one step closer to an effective vaccine candidate for the coronavirus pandemic," Akers CEO Christopher Schreiber said in a statement.
Akers said it has also initiated the second stage in protein expression, which it hopes to provide an update on later this month.
Akers shares were skyrocketing by 153.68% to $4.82 at the time of publication Monday.
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