Vaccitech

Vaccitech plc is a biotechnology company developing vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases and cancer, such as hepatitis B, HPV and prostate cancer.
Technology.
The company's platform includes Chimpanzee Adenovirus Oxford (ChAdOx) and Modified Vaccinia Ankara (MVA), two viral vectors which safely mimic viral infection in human cells and elicit antibody and T cell responses to pathogens and tumours.
History.
The company was founded in 2016 as a University spin-off by Sarah Gilbert and Adrian V. S. Hill at the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford.
Vaccitech has been financed and supported by Google Ventures (GV), Sequoia Capital, GeneMatrix, Liontrust Asset Management, Korea Investment Partners and Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI). investment in vaccitech has included over £20m of series A round funding.
In early 2020, Vaccitech and the University of Oxford co-invented a vaccine for COVID-19 using the ChAdOx platform. Phase 3 clinical trials for the vaccine are ongoing, conducted by the University and development partners, AstraZeneca.
COVID-19 vaccine.
In July 2020, it was reported that people in Brazil, South Africa and the US had been recruited to populate the vaccine trials.
In July 2020, Vaccitech scientists reported in "The Lancet" a "single-blind, randomised controlled trial in five trial sites in the UK of a chimpanzee adenovirus-vectored vaccine (ChAdOx1 nCoV-19) expressing the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein." Several subjects needed prophylactic paracetamol to minimize their adverse reactions. The results seemed to "support large-scale evaluation of this candidate vaccine in an ongoing phase 3 programme."