Developing vaccines is a risky business. Biotechnology is fighting the coronavirus anyway – Mash Viral

For biotech companies, responding to a sudden public health crisis, such as the coronavirus, can be a risky business. It can take more than a year to develop a vaccine or treatment. By then, the threat could be gone, leaving little or no demand for medicine.

The current coronavirus pandemic looks different.

The race to beat the pathogen continues, with many biotechnologies now anticipating a large market for coronavirus therapy in 2021 or thereafter. But the starting gun did not fire as soon as the virus started spreading late last year.

There have been many companies that feel bitten once, shy twice, said Jose Travejo, CEO of SmartPharm Therapeutics in Kendall Square.

Companies were shy because drug makers were bitten in the past when they rushed to tackle an epidemic, only to see the danger go away and their efforts go to waste. This happened during a previous coronavirus scare, the 2003 SARS epidemic, which ended before any vaccine maker made money.

There was also Ebola. Then many people forget about swine flu H1N1, Travejo said. So, I think very big pharmacists are hesitant to dive completely into coronavirus.

The opinion of the industry has changed in recent weeks. At LabCentral, the shared workspace where Travejo gene therapy is launched, more than a dozen companies have turned their attention to coronavirus, including SmartPharm.

And this is just one lab in Cambridge.

The number of companies pursuing coronavirus drugs is steadily increasing, according to Yasmen Rahimi, co-director of biotechnology research at Roth Capital Partners, an investment banking firm in Newport Beach, California.

I follow COVID-19 daily, she said. Almost every day we get 10 or 12 companies coming.

Rahimi said the most notable may be Modern, another Cambridge biotech. It is the first company to begin testing a potential coronavirus vaccine for people in the United States.

Modern did not respond to an interview request. But in a public document this week, the company said it was probably not commercially available for the vaccine for at least 12-18 months.

Modern does not think that the virus will enter until then. Instead, its increasing production capacity to produce millions of doses per month.

That may not be enough, according to Dr. Lee Wetzler, an infectious disease specialist at Boston Medical Center.

Just like the flu vaccine, youre not just talking about millions of doses, said Wetzler, who is also a professor at Boston University School of Medicine. Tens tens of millions of doses and more.

Then again, Wetzler added, its hard to predict what this unknown virus will look like in a year. The pandemic may be under control, which would be good for the world, but it may not be as good for companies like Moderna and others who invest in medicines to stop it.

There is a cautionary tale in the once hot biotech Vical that received federal money to chase anthrax, SARS and Ebola vaccines. Fear and funding always fade before Vical manages to cross the finish line, said John Carroll, editor of Endpoints News, a biotechnology publication.

What Vical did was just a flame, he said. They couldnt come up with a vaccine, and after multiple setbacks, they just couldnt do it anymore.

The risk of failure is well understood by James Siestra, CEO of Totient, one of the startup companies at LabCentral that have switched to coronavirus. But he claims that working with the coronavirus will not be useless, even if the disease goes ahead before Totient puts the drug on the market.

As a business case for us, this is great evidence of the strength of our platform, he said.

Sietstra said the same method that Totient would use to attack the coronavirus could be used against other diseases including the companys original goal cancer.

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Developing vaccines is a risky business. Biotechnology is fighting the coronavirus anyway - Mash Viral