Wayne Channon

He’s a former dressage star who is fighting to rid the world of Covid-19 – the biotechnology chairman chats to Polly Bryan about the race for a vaccine

- Polly Bryan

WAYNE CHANNON boasts a unique CV. An entrepreneur specialising in life sciences, and chairman of three innovative companies, he has also represented Britain in dressage on a number of occasions, including the 2005 European Championships, 2006 World Equestrian Games (WEG) and 2007 World Cup Final. And now, Wayne is hoping to make another huge addition to his list of achievements – a solution to the devastating coronavirus pandemic.

As chairman of the biotechnology company Stabilitech Biopharma, Wayne and his team are currently at the forefront of the most urgent public health project of a generation – the development of a vital vaccine to protect against Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has rampaged across the globe in the past three months.

On the day of our interview in early April – conducted remotely under the social distancing rules of the UK lockdown – Wayne estimates that his company’s vaccine could be widely available to the UK public in capsule form, before the end of 2020.

“There is only one way out of this pandemic – creating what is known as herd immunity. There are two techniques to achieve that,” says Wayne. “One is allowing enough people to be infected by the disease, which is dangerous, and the other is via a vaccine.”

The challenges involved in creating such a vaccine, that can be manufactured and distributed as widely as required to protect an entire population against this novel virus, are vast. But, in aiming to produce it in capsule form, Wayne is confident that Stabilitech’s unique approach may hold the key.