Mynvax offers ‘warm vaccine’ for COVID-19

Biotech startup Mynvax, incubated at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru, has developed heat-tolerant COVID-19 vaccine formulations. Published in the peer-reviewed ACS Infectious Diseases journal, researchers showed the vaccine formulations triggered a strong immune response in mice, protected hamsters from the virus, and remained stable at 37 degrees up to a month and at 100 degrees for up to 90 minutes. Most vaccines require refrigeration to remain effective, like Oxford-AstraZeneca which must be kept between 2 and 8 degrees and Pfizer which requires specialised cold storage at -70 degrees. The data shows that all formulations of Mynvax tested result in antibodies capable of consistent and effective neutralisation of the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.