The announcement by WHO, comes after the approval from WHO Ethics Review Committee and relevant regulatory authorities and ethics committees of Colombia, Mali and Philippines granted approval for the study to progress. Each clinical site and respective national principal investigators and research teams have begun recruiting volunteers to join the trial.

This is an international, randomized clinical trial platform designed to rapidly evaluate the efficacy and safety of promising new candidate vaccines contributing to the creation of a larger portfolio of vaccines needed to protect people from COVID-19 around the world.

MVC began developing its own vaccine in February of 2020 with the hopes of bringing forth a solution capable of helping in part end the devastating pandemic. MVC-COV1901 is a subunit vaccine with recombinant S-2P antigen adjuvanted with CpG 1018 supplied by Dynavax and aluminum hydroxide.

"We are extremely grateful that we have been selected to be part of the WHO International Solidarity Trial Vaccines against COVID-19. We have been working to design a vaccine that has mild side effects and actively protects the public from the adverse effects of the virus. Seeing promising results thus far, we hope that the international trial conducted by WHO and participating countries will assist to curb the escalation of cases," said Charles Chen, Vice Chairman & CEO, Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp.

With the battle against the pandemic still on an incline, the need for effective vaccines is still in high demand and MVC believes it has the capacity, infrastructure, and expertise to contribute towards achieving global protection.