Pharmaceutical companies Medicago and GlaxoSmithKline announced on Tuesday “positive efficacy and safety results” from a global trial using what they say is the world’s first plant-based coronavirus vaccine.

Studying 24,000 adults across six countries, the late-stage trial found that the overall efficacy rate of the vaccine candidate was 71 percent, rising to 75.3 percent against “COVID-19 of any severity for the globally dominant delta variant.” However, the trial did not include the newly identified omicron variant.

The global Phase 3 placebo-controlled efficacy study used Canada-based Medicago’s plantbased vaccine in combination with British drugmaker GSK’s pandemic adjuvant, an ingredient that works to boost the immune response and efficacy of others’ vaccines.

It does not yet have a brand name, the companies said, but is currently referred to as “CoVLP.”

Plant-based vegan and vegetarian alternatives in food and materials markets have become increasingly popular globally, as consumers choose them for environmental or religious reasons, but Brian Ward, medical officer at Medicago, told the Washington

Post that it would not be appropriate to categorize the vaccine candidate as such: “The plants that are used simply act as bioreactors to produce the antigen.”

The companies said they hoped the vaccine would diversify the current pool of shots available and said the trial had shown that it was “well-tolerated, with no related serious adverse events reported in the vaccine group.”

“This is an incredible moment for Medicago and for novel vaccine platforms. The results of our clinical trials show the power of plant-based vaccine manufacturing technology,” Takashi Nagao, CEO and president of Medicago, said in a statement. “If approved, we will be contributing to the world’s fight against the COVID19 pandemic with the world’s first plant-based vaccine for use in humans.”

The vaccine candidate has not been approved by any regulatory authority. However, Medicago said it would “imminently” file its final regulatory submission to Health Canada.

It also said it had initiated the regulatory filing process with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Britain’s MHRA regulatory authority, while preliminary discussions were also underway with the World Health Organization.