Medicago Touts Promising Results for Plant-Based COVID-19 Shot

The world’s first plant-based COVID-19 vaccine has just returned positive results in a late-stage study.

The candidate, made by Canadian biopharma Medicago using GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) vaccine adjuvant, proved to be 75.3 percent effective against the Delta variant and showed an overall efficacy rate against all variants of 71 percent, the companies said in a joint statement.

The vaccine candidate wasn't tested against Omicron, as the variant hadn't yet emerged when the trial was underway. Medicago said it started the study in March with approximately 24,000 participants age 18 and older in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

Medicago will now seek regulatory approval from Health Canada as part of a rolling submission, the company said. It has also initiated the regulatory filing process with the FDA and the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).