Benzinga | Dec 7, 2021 07:49AM EST

Medicago, GSK's Plant-Based COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Hits 75% Efficacy Against Delta Strain

Canada-based Medicago and GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE:GSK) have released Phase 3 data from their plant-derived adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine candidate. The trial was conducted on over 24,000 subjects (adults 18 years and above) across six countries.

* The companies found that the overall vaccine efficacy rate against all variants of SARS-CoV-2 was 71%, with the number for people with an initial seronegative status (showing no previous exposure to COVID-19) 75.6%.

* The vaccine works as two doses of 3.75 ?g of antigen combined with GSK's pandemic adjuvant given 21 days apart.

* The vaccine candidate demonstrated the efficacy of 75.3% against COVID-19 of any severity for the globally dominant Delta variant.

* Efficacy was 88.6% against the gamma variant, though it's in small numbers of people.

* No cases of the alpha, lambda, and mu variants were observed in the vaccinated group, while 12 cases were observed in the placebo group.

* Complete results of GSK/Medicago's phase 3 study "will be released in a peer-reviewed publication as soon as possible."

* Medicago will imminently seek regulatory approval from Health Canada as part of its rolling submission.

* Related Link: GlaxoSmithKline-Medicago's COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Elicit Strong Immune Response.

* Price Action: GSK shares are up 0.74% at $42.07 during the premarket session on the last check Tuesday.