Here is the info in the article. Sounds like Joe s

Here is the info in the article. Sounds like Joe stayed here to avoid a quarantine.


South Florida biotech secures funding to research coronavirus vaccine
By Emon Reiser

Generex Biotechnology Corp. CEO Joe Moscato is eager for his team to get to work on developing a much-needed vaccine for the coronavirus, but they're stuck in New York.

His Miramar-based firm this week announced a contract with Beijing Zhonghua Investment Fund Management Co. for $1 million to research a means of slowing down the rapidly spreading illness, which so far has claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people and infected over 90,000 globally.

The company would earn another $5 million in licensing fees for its Ii-Key technology if it's used to produce a vaccine for coronavirus with promising results, plus $2 for every dose administered in royalties.

Moscato is optimistic that an "optimal" vaccine could be made with Generex's Ii-Key platform within five months. But first, he has to get to Beijing.

"Beijing is shut down. Martial law is in effect," Moscato said. "We got a call saying not to come an hour before we were supposed to take off."

Moscato and his team would have stepped off of a 14-hour flight directly into a two-week quarantine, Moscato said. With everything in the city shut down, they decided to stay in New York after traveling from South Florida for their connecting flight. The formalities of the deal, Moscato said, will be done by video conference for now.

Once they can get started, about six Generex researchers will work to apply the Ii-Key technology to coronavirus.

First, they will test blood samples of patients who have recovered from the virus. Then, after identifying compounds in their blood samples that are best at fighting coronavirus, they would seek to reproduce them using the Ii-Key peptide vaccine platform of Generex's majority-owned subsidiary NuGenerex Immune-Oncology (NGIO), formerly Antigen Express.

Once those compounds (peptides) are reproduced synthetically using Ii-Key, testing on human subjects would begin.

"We're taking portions of the virus that are critical in mounting an immune response, using those portions for peptides we're making synthetically, and educating their immune systems if they do encounter the coronavirus," said Dr. Eric Von Hofe, head of NGIO.

The potential vaccine may not have to go through multiple trials, Von Hofe said. That's because Generex may be able to test on a large enough group of patients in China — where most coronavirus patients are located — to expedite the process.

What's more, Von Hofe says he as promising research from Ii-Key when it was applied to the SARS and bird flu epidemics. The Ii-Key platform was used to immunize about 120 people from bird flu, Moscato said, but past funding dried up before the company could get the technology to market.

Generex's partners will pay for all research it does for the coronavirus vaccine. The deal is subject to approval under the China Technology Import Contract Management Regulations, as well as China's version of the Food & Drug Administration. The China-owned partner would have exclusive rights to produce the vaccine, per the terms of the deal.