On April 12, 2021, Sequentia Biotech, a Spanish omics company, and NextBiomics, a biotech company involved in the research and development of Next Generation Probiotics and a spin-off of the Federico II University of Naples, announced the filing of a patent application for a bacterial vaccine against the COVID-19 syndrome.
By engineering the probiotic Escherichia Coli Nissle 1917 expressing the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein, it was possible to obtain an innovative model of immunization against COVID-19 by stimulating the intestinal immune system”,
Giovanni Sarnelli
“The NEXBIOMICS vaccine is similar to others that have been already authorized (Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Reithera, Johnson & Johnson) in that it stimulates the immune response against the Spike protein that the Coronavirus uses to infect cells, but it differs from them because it uses a probiotic bacterium as a vector, which is already on the market and being widely used for other purposes.