Genexine said Monday that it has signed an agreement with the Institut Pasteur Korea (IPK) to conduct global clinical trials of the Covid-19 vaccine GX-19N that can respond to the variant strains.

The two companies plan to check the efficacy of GX-19N against Covid-19 variants in countries where they have dominantly spread throughout the nation. Genexine aims to win approval for phase-2 and phase-3 clinical trials with IPK’s global network.

IPK and Genexine would build an ideal system for global clinical trials of GX-19N via overseas clinical trial design capabilities and international collaboration, including the Global Virus Network (GVN). Genexine said it has discovered drug candidates for Covid-19 via repurposing and began conducting studies in Senegal, Mexico, and Australia.

Recent studies say that the available vaccines show lower efficacy against Covid-19 variants, but GX-19N can respond to the mutations with added nucleocapsid antigens.

Genexine completed the phase-1 clinical trial in February and entered phase-2a in 150 healthy adults. The company applied for phase-2 and phase-3 clinical trials in Indonesia last month.

“It is important to respond quickly to the variants for global herd immunity, and we have decided to conduct studies in other countries considering the domestic situation,” IPK CEO Jee Young-mee said. “We will contribute to developing a vaccine effective for Covid-19 variants and get through the pandemic with Genexine.”

Genexine CEO Sung Young-chul said, “We were able to drive clinical trials in other countries with variant Covid-19 strains with the support of IPK.” 

Genexine and IPK plan to conduct more studies in countries with Covid-19 variants to speed up the vaccine development.