COVID-19 Vaccine Packed Into Skin Patch Shows Promise in Mice

The companies entering the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine will not only have to prove efficacy quickly, they’ll also have to figure out how to scale up production in time to help stem the current epidemic. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they’ve made progress on both fronts with their new COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

The team developed a vaccine that can be delivered into the skin with a Band-Aid-like patch made of 400 tiny needles. When they tested it in mice, the vaccine produced antibodies to fend off the virus within two weeks, they reported in the journal EBioMedicine. The researchers are now applying for an investigational new drug designation from the FDA in the hopes of starting a phase 1 clinical trial shortly, they said in a statement.

The Pitt invention builds off discoveries the researchers made during the SARS-CoV outbreak of 2003 and the emergence of MERS-CoV a few years ago. COVID-19 shares a “spike” protein with those earlier viruses. The new vaccine, called PittCoVacc, contains pieces of that protein. It’s designed to spark an immune reaction against the virus without actually causing any symptoms of it—a similar mechanism of action to the flu vaccine.