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by linusw 1846 days ago
Your [0] sounds great as a treatment if it works, and complementary to vaccines for prevention. The paper is about a vaccine slapped on your skin ("This delivers the vaccine directly to the dermal and upper dermal layers of the skin").

Along those lines, some other interesting companies in early stages are:

* Inovio - skin-based, but with a special device - https://www.inovio.com/our-focus-serving-patients/covid-19/

* Vaxart - oral pill - https://www.pharmaceutical-technology.com/news/vaxart-vaccin..., https://vaxart.com/tablet-vaccines/

* ImmunityBio - oral/sublingual/subcutaneous injection/combo - https://immunitybio.com/covid-19/, https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/01/12/215692... (some of their papers also compare against intramuscular versions of their drug, but they appear to want to avoid big needles and have some means of injecting just below the skin, but not as shallow as this HD-MAP approach it seems)

* Oravax Medical - oral - https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/covid-19-vaccine/news/2021032... / https://www.ora-vax.com

* Aeterna Zentaris - oral - https://www.zentaris.com/oral-coronavirus-vaccine, but this is still pre-clinical.

This site https://covid-19tracker.milkeninstitute.org/#vaccines_intro also mentions two other oral-based companies, but either they don't have any explicit info on progress or they haven't been mentioned since early 2020:

- Applied Biotechnology Institute - http://www.appliedbiotech.org/research-development/products-...

- Migal Galilee Research Institute - https://www.migal.org.il/en/coronavirus-vaccine-project, https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-made-oral-vaccine-for-... (since the main website still says in-vivo in 90 days, I'm guessing there was a halt in development.)

If the Milken Institute is up-to-date, Inovio should be furthest along (prepping phase 3), followed by ImmunityBio (phase 1/2). Anyone succeeding would be a wonderful addition for the world!