UW virologists, vaccine companies working on COVID-19 vaccine

University of Wisconsin-Madison virologists and vaccine companies are developing and testing a vaccine against COVID-19, according to a Thursday statement.

CoroFlu will build off of a flu vaccine candidate being developed by Madison-based FluGen. Refinement of the concept and testing in laboratory animal models at UW-Madison will take three to six months.

India-based Bharat Biotech, which has commercialized 16 vaccines, including one developed against the H1N1 that caused a 2009 pandemic, will begin production scale-up for safety and efficacy testing in humans. CoroFlu could be in human clinical trials by this fall, according to the statement.

“The partners in this endeavor — University of Wisconsin researchers, a biotech startup, and an international vaccine developer — are moving forward with a sense of urgency and integrity incumbent upon us as scientists and world citizens,” Erik Iverson, CEO of Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, said in a statement.

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