VACCINE FOR COVID 19 (Part II)

(Continued from yesterday)

There are good number of assumptions and presumptions about vaccine for Covid 19. Some say it is so close but some other say it is too far. Let us continue with our mask, soap and distancing.

On the vaccine front, American biotech firm Moderna was one of the first companies in the world to react to the Covid 19 outbreak back in January. It began working on its mRNA-1273 vaccine. The potential Covid 19 vaccine since entered clinical trials, received a funding boost of close to $500m and been fast tracked through regulatory protocols by the US FDA. P fizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca moved to the forefront of the race to find a coronavirus vaccine.

Two major pharma companies, P fizer from the US and BioNTech from Germany, announced to join hands to co-develop and distribute a potential coronavirus vaccine. Development of mRNA vaccine programme, BNT162, was expected to enter clinical testing in April 2020.

Inovio looks to be an underdog in the race, having no big pharma partner and assembling only about $29m in external funding. But it has moved swiftly, completing dosing in a 40 patients Phase I trial, with early safety and immunogenicity data expected in late June. A Phase 2/3 efficacy trial is expected to begin this summer.

AstraZeneca became a front runner in coronavirus drug development when it licenced work by the University of Oxford, which invented one of the first vaccines for SARS-CoV-2 to enter human testing. A large Phase I study began in late April and should deliver results shortly. Oxford has already advanced the vaccine into mid-stage testing in more than 10,000 Britons. AstraZeneca, meanwhile, has said it could progress to late stage trials by mid year, possibly with a 30,000 person Phase III study in US. Deals struck by AstraZeneca with two health charities and India's Serum Institute will provide for supply elsewhere, particularly low and middle income countries, but first deliveries to CEPI and GAVI aren't expected until the end of the year.

Novavax was among the first companies to begin working on a Covid 19 vaccine, and selected it's candidate in April. By the end of May, it had not one won a large grant from the nonprofit Coalition for Economic Preparedness Innovations, upto $388m,  but also became one of justy a handful of companies to have started a Phase I clinical trial.

Merck & Co.came late to the coronavirus vaccine race, having publicly announced its efforts near the end of May. The company is not trying to use new, less proven technologies to move quickly. Instead Merck homed in on approaches it knows it can manufacture at a global scale, and believes will produce immunity quickly, with one shot.

Johnson and Johnson was first among larger drug makers to pursue a coronavirus vaccine, announcing in late January plans to develop one using the same technology that underpins several other of the pharma's experimental vaccines. Initially J&J didn't expect to begin clinical study until September, a timeline that would have marked record speed previously but in the Covid 19 age appeared more deliberate. In early June, however,  the pharma sped up it plans and now targets the second half of July for the start of its first clinical trial, which will take place in the US and Belgium.

Sanofi, GlaxoSmithKline - when two of the biggest vaccine manufacturers team up,  the world should pay attention to what they're doing. In April, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline agreed to join forces, the former contributing it's protein based vaccine technology and the latter it's immune boosting adjuvants, both of which have previously been use against influenza. They probably won't be the first to market, however. The timeline the two companies have laid out is months behind that of Moderna, 

Pfizer and even Novavax, which is using a similar approach.

(To be continued)

KV George

kvgeorgein@gmail.com