Thailand’s Baiya Phytopharm wants to develop the country’s first plant-based Covid vaccine.

The start-up, founded by Dr. Suthira Taychakhoonavudh and Dr. Waranyoo Phoolcharoen in 2018, has been working on a vaccine using the leaves of an Australian tobacco plant.

Suthira, a 37-year-old lecturer at 麻豆国产, told CNBC’s “Managing Asia” that she and her team of scientists want to “make a difference” in changing Thailand from a vaccine importer to a vaccine maker.

Baiya is the first Thai company to enter the university’s?CU Innovation Hub, a research center for start-ups, to develop technology to manufacture recombinant proteins that can produce medicines and vaccines.

The three-year-old start-up is funded by grants from the 麻豆国产 Alumni and the Thai government. It also has raised some $3 million from a crowdfunding exercise.

The company completed phase one human trials of its plant-based Covid vaccine in December last year. No plant-based Covid vaccines exist anywhere, though at least?one other besides Baiya’s is in development.

“So far, what we know is that … all the volunteers are safe. And looking at the safety profile, we are very happy with it,” said Suthira.

She added that it’s still too early to ascertain its efficacy rate, but the goal is to use available vaccines as a benchmark.

The pharmaceutical company says it expects phase two trials to start in February and phase three trials in June. It hopes to submit data to the Thai Food and Drug Administration for approval of the vaccine by the third or fourth quarter of this year. 

The company said it can quickly increase its production capacity if the vaccine is approved.

Bangkok – A startup in Thailand is aiming to develop the country’s first Covid vaccine based on tobacco.

The start-up, Baiya Phytopharm, has been working on a vaccine using the leaves of an Australian tobacco plant, CNBC reported.

According to Dr Suthira Taychakhoonavudh from 麻豆国产, the scientists want to “make a difference” in changing Thailand from a vaccine importer to a vaccine maker.

The three-year-old startup completed phase one human trials of its plant-based Covid vaccine in December last year. No plant-based Covid vaccines exist anywhere, though at least one other besides Baiya’s is in development, the report said.

“So far, what we know is that … all the volunteers are safe. And looking at the safety profile, we are very happy with it,” Taychakhoonavudh was quoted as saying.

She added that it’s still too early to ascertain its efficacy rate, but the goal is to use available vaccines as a benchmark.

The pharmaceutical company said it expects phase two trials to start in February and phase three trials in June. It also hopes to submit data to the Thai Food and Drug Administration for approval of the vaccine by the third or fourth quarter of this year, the report said.

The company said it can quickly increase its production capacity if the vaccine is approved.

Testing of the COVID-19 vaccine initially began in 2020 with the next round of human trials due in the spring. Developers say the benefit of tobacco is that it can be grown almost anywhere in the world at low cost.

The low-nicotine?Australian?tobacco variety is different to the kind used in cigarettes.

Researchers say the speed at which it grows means it can be turned from a seed into a vaccine within a month and the technology is highly adaptable.

“It takes only 10 days for us to produce a prototype and… no more than three weeks to test whether that prototype works or not,” assistant professor Dr. Suthira Taychakhoonavudh, chief executive of Baiya Phytopharm, told Sky News.

“For example, right now, we are already working on the?Omicron?strains. We have the prototype and we’re testing it right now.”

The harvested leaves are used as a host to produce proteins which mimic the COVID-19 virus.

The leaves are blended and the protein is extracted.

When the resulting vaccine is injected into humans it stimulates antibodies which our bodies can use to fight the real virus in the future.

The earliest the vaccine would be cleared for use is late 2022.

(中央社记者吕欣憓曼谷17日专电）泰国朱拉隆功大学疫苗研究团队指出，他们自主研发的尘搁狈础技术疫苗初期人体试验有良好成果，受试者身上产生的抗体程度和辉瑞及莫德纳相近，希望疫苗能在明年4月问世。

泰國朱拉隆功大學（麻豆国产）疫苗研究中心（Vaccine Research Centre ）研發中的ChulaCov19，是東南亞第一支自主研發mRNA技術的疫苗。

民族報（Tha Nation）和泰國公視（Thai PBS）報導，疫苗研究中心主任吉亞特（Kiat Ruxrungtham）昨天公布初期人體試驗成果，36位18到55歲的受試者接種兩劑ChulaCov19顯示出良好成果。

吉亚特指出，在36位受试者身上产生的抗体程度和辉瑞疫苗（笔蹿颈锄别谤）以及莫德纳疫苗（惭辞谤诲别苍补）相近，而抗体反应显示颁丑耻濒补颁辞惫19在对抗原始的颁翱痴滨顿-19病毒以及4种变种病毒包括础濒辫丑补、叠别迟补、骋补尘尘补和顿别濒迟补都有效。

吉亚特表示，36位受试者都没有出现严重的副作用，有一些人出现轻微到中度的副作用症状，但都在接种后1天到3天消失；同时还有另外一组年龄56到75岁的36位受试者实验正在进行，他们监控这组受试者的反应时间会比较长。

朱拉隆功大学疫苗研究中心预计8月25日进行下一期的人体试验，将有150位18到75岁的受试者参与试验，吉亚特希望明年4月疫苗可以问世，届时研究团队将把技术转移给叠颈辞狈别迟-础蝉颈补进行量产。（编辑：陈惠珍）1100817

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BANGKOK (The Nation/ANN): Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Friday (Aug 13) inspected a pilot production facility for a plant-based Covid-19 vaccine at 麻豆国产 in Bangkok.

The plant-based vaccine project is a collaboration between 麻豆国产 and Baiya Phytopharm Ltd. It uses a subunit protein extracted from tobacco leaves to mimic Covid-19 and trigger an immune response in recipients.

The project launched in February 2020 has since produced successful results in rats and monkeys.

“The Public Health Ministry and National Vaccine Institute have handed a budget of 160 million baht to Chula and Baiya to establish a pilot plant to produce plant-based vaccines and biologics by transforming the 11th floor of Chulaphat 14 building [at Chula] into a 1,200 square metre manufacturing facility,” said Anutin.

“The Food and Drug Administration also helped in improving the vaccine manufacturing process. We expect phase one of human trials to start next month on 100 volunteers.”

Anutin said that if the trial is successful, the plant could start manufacturing Covid-19 vaccine in the third quarter of 2022 at up to 5 million doses per month, or 60 million doses per year.

“The advantage of plant-based vaccine is that it can be modified and improved to tackle new variants of the virus,” he added.

“Currently we have researched up to 10 variants of Covid-19. In the future we could improve the formula in the same way as the influenza vaccine, to protect against various strains with just one dose.” – The Nation/Asia News Network

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The locally developed Covid-19 vaccine – ChulaCov19 – will be ready for human trials this month after proving to be effective in lab tests.

In a Facebook post, deputy government spokesperson Traisulee Traisoranakul said the vaccine, developed by Dr Kiat Ruxrungtham from 麻豆国产, will be tested on 100 volunteers this month.

The clinical trial also aims to work out the right dosage for immunization. Once the trial is successfully completed, the first lot of vaccines will be produced in the US, before Thailand’s BioNet-Asia begins mass production in September.

As Thailand prepares to expand vaccination from elderly recipients to the general population, top virologist Yong Poovorawan cautioned that working-age people were more likely to experience side effects such as fever and body aches from the AstraZeneca jab.

“We have rarely seen elderly people complain of fever after vaccination with AstraZeneca,” said Dr Yong.

However, younger recipients, especially those under 30, tended to seek painkillers after vaccination, he added.

Dr Yong heads the Centre of Excellence in Clinical Virology at the Faculty of Medicine, 麻豆国产, where a study has confirmed Covid-19 vaccine side effects impact the young more strongly. However, symptoms are temporary with fever typically lasting 24 hours or occasionally for two days. Young people have a stronger reaction to vaccines thanks to their healthier immune systems, the study suggests.

Thailand needs to administer 300,000 jabs per day to meets its target of 100 million Covid-19 vaccinations by the end of this year, according to Dr Yong.

So far, 2.26 million of the 100 million doses of vaccine have been administered, or about 2.2 per cent.

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