By The Life Science Report

Source: Streetwise Reports   07/09/2020

Altimmune shares reached a new 52-week high after the company reported it is collaborating with DynPort Vaccine on U.S. government funding efforts for AdCOVID™, its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company Altimmune Inc. (ALT:NASDAQ), which focuses it efforts on developing treatments for liver disease, intranasal vaccines and immune modulating therapies, today announced that “it has entered into a teaming agreement with DynPort Vaccine Company (DVC), a General Dynamics Information Technology company, to coordinate U.S. Government funding efforts and, if successful, to provide program management, drug development activity integration, and regulatory support for AdCOVID, Altimmune’s single-dose intranasal COVID-19 vaccine candidate.”

The company noted that DVC has extensive experience in vaccine development and has supported vaccines and medical countermeasures for emerging diseases and bioterror threats under contracts with the Biomedical Advance Research and Development Authority, the Department of Defense and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The firm indicated that it is collaborating with the University of Alabama at Birmingham on preclinical AdCOVID studies and that the initial results from these studies are expected to be received shortly. Altimmune anticipates that it will be able to start manufacturing the vaccine candidate in Q3/20 and that it will commence a Phase 1 clinical trial during Q4/20.

The company explained that “AdCOVID is an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine candidate designed to guard the respiratory tract from viral invasion and to provide downstream protection against viral spread through stimulation of both mucosal and systemic antibodies (IgA and IgG) as well as cell-mediated immunity.” The firm stated that it believes that AdCOVID’s intranasal delivery method is much simpler than an injection and may possibly eliminate the requirement for the vaccine to be administration by trained medical staff.

Altimmune advised that it already has two existing programs that were supported by non-dilutive government funding. Those programs are NasoShield^TM, a single dose intranasal anthrax vaccine candidate, and T-COVID^TM, an intranasal therapeutic for early COVID-19.

DynPort Vaccine Co. is based in Frederick, Md., and was established in order to develop vaccines and therapeutics for U.S. Government customers. The company has been involved in developing medical countermeasures for biodefense, chemical warfare agents and emerging infectious diseases.

Altimmune is a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Gaithersburg, Md., that is engaged in the development of treatments for liver disease, immune modulating therapies and intranasal vaccines. The firm stated that “its diversified pipeline includes next generation peptide therapeutics for NASH (ALT-801) and chronic hepatitis B (HepTcell™), an intranasal immune modulating treatment for COVID-19 (T-COVID™) and intranasal vaccines (AdCOVID™, NasoShield™ and NasoVAX™).”

Altimmune started the day with a market capitalization of around $342.5 million with approximately 20.11 million shares outstanding and a short interest of about 13.1%. ALT shares opened slightly lower today at $16.73 (-$0.30, -1.76%) versus yesterday’s $17.03 closing price, but later reached a new 52-week high price this morning of $24.65.The stock has traded today between $16.11 and $24.65 per share and is currently trading at $20.62 (+$3.59, +21.08%).

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( Companies Mentioned: ALT:NASDAQ,
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