The future Spanish vaccine against COVID in which the Hipra laboratories, based in Amer (Girona) are working, presents good results against the omicron variant, as confirmed this Tuesday by the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant. Morant has visited the facilities of this company and recalled that he works with the method of recombining proteins, which is designed for alpha and beta strains, but can be adapted to “those that may arise”.

“The results and the resistance of the vaccine that is being tested today against the new variant, against the omicron, have just told me that it is good,” said the minister, who hopes that it will be marketed in the second quarter of this year.

Diana Morant has underlined the hopes that both Spain and Europe have in the work carried out by Hipra and in its ability to adapt to new strains. Morant has detailed that this specificity is reminiscent of that of the influenza vaccine that is inoculated annually with a new design, “because the flu mutates.” It has also highlighted advantages such as its conservation at between two and eight degrees Celsius and that it does not require any type of preparation, so “if it comes out, it would be the best vaccine that would exist.”

It is expected to be authorized in January

At the moment, according to the minister, there is no “doubt about the safety of people or lack of efficiency”, so it is expected that this January will be authorized by the Spanish Agency of Medicines the step to the third phase of trials, in which 3,000 people and 15 hospitals between Spanish and other countries would participate.

Hipra works with a model of its own vaccine, but also with a booster one, approved in Spain for people who have previously received the doses of Pfizer.m However, Diana Morant has pointed out that, “in subsequent trials, a booster will be tested with the different vaccines that exist in the market “.

The desire expressed by Morant is that 2022 be a “year of hope in overcoming the pandemic” and in the recovery of its “socioeconomic derivatives.”

The axis of the future will be “public-private collaboration” such as that exercised in the case of Hipra, from which it has announced that it will receive 2 million euros in front of a consortium of companies to research an advanced therapy aimed at making a vaccine against “a virus that causes bronchiolitis and pneumonia in all ages, but especially in very young children.”

This financing is part of the mission projects “that the Center for Industrial Technological Development of the Ministry of Science brings out” and that has just been resolved “for a value of 120 million euros awarded to 37 projects”. In turn, all this work is encompassed, according to the minister, “in another country, the PERTE -Strategic Projects for Recovery and Economic Transformation- of cutting-edge health”, which mobilizes more than one billion euros.

Finally, Diana Morant has indicated that she hopes that Hipra will achieve the same success in finding volunteers for the new trial phase of its vaccine as the one it has obtained so far.

Support and financing

The final objective would in any case be to have in that second quarter of the year “Spanish vaccine and that would improve the existing ones” after the Government has accompanied the Catalan company “from the first moment”.

This support has been specified “through scientific advice, the contribution of spaces such as hospitals to carry out tests and advice on regulatory matters”.

Financing has been added to all this, “with a first grant of three million euros for research and a second of fifteen that is making the company have production capacity.”