ROME (Reuters) – Italy will enter the capital of biotech company ReiThera to support the development of its COVID-19 vaccine, with the aim of concluding Phase 3 trials by summer 2021, the government’s special commissioner for the COVID emergency said on Tuesday.
“The government will enter the group’s capital through a state-controlled company in order to support, also by means of a capital injection, phase 2 and phase 3 (clinical trials for the vaccine development)”, commissioner Domenico Arcuri told a news conference.
Arcuri added that the potential vaccine, called GRAd-COV2, would help Italy reach “some independence” in the procurement of shots.
ReiThera is developing a vaccine together with Germany’s Leukocare and Belgium’s Univercells.
(Reporting by Angelo Amante, editing by Giulia Segreti)
