CoVLP

The product and Medicago, Inc. were owned by Mitsubishi who terminated the company and program in February 2023 due to high international market competition for COVID-19 vaccines.

[14] CoVLP is an example of a virus-like particle vaccine, consisting of a molecular complex which closely resembles a virus, but is non-infectious because it contains no viral genetic material.

[15][16] The virus-like particles are produced by creating a bacterium engineered with genes of the virus, then introducing the bacteria into Nicotiana benthamiana plants.

[18][19] In March 2022, the vaccine was rejected by the World Health Organization due to the tobacco company Philip Morris International owning a stake in Medicago.

All formulations were well tolerated, and adverse events after vaccination were generally mild to moderate, transient and highest in the adjuvanted groups.

Researchers reported day 42 interim safety 17 and immunogenicity data from a Phase II, randomized, placebo-controlled trial in Adults aged 18+ immunized with a virus-like particle vaccine candidate produced in plants displaying 19 SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein (CoVLP) adjuvanted with AS03 (NCT04636697).

[27] According to the analysis of the data presented by Health Canada's National Advisory Committee on Immunization (NACI), CoVLP exhibited 69.5% efficacy against laboratory-confirmed, symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection starting at least 7 days after the second dose of the vaccine in the intention-to-treat analysis, even though the trial included some participants who had previously been infected with the virus when the trial began.