TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Novavax, an unpopular biotech company from Maryland, USA, announced the results of an early-phase clinical trial for the Covid-19 vaccine candidate it is developing, Tuesday, September 22, 2020. Surprisingly, a number of virologists rated the company’s reported results as the most promising among vaccine candidates Another Covid-19 that has begun to be tested on humans.
“This is the first time I see it and say, ‘Yeah, I’m going to use it,'” said virologist at Weill Cornell Medicine, John Moore.
Moore – not including the team at Novavax – admits that the clinical trial data of every Covid-19 vaccine candidate in the world cannot be compared at this time. But he said the initial results of the Novavax vaccine were most impressive.
Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Columbia University, agrees. Nor was he involved in the Novavax study. “The initial results are promising,” he said.
However, Rasmussen emphasized that clinical trials must go to phase 3 to ensure the vaccine is really safe and effectively used. The phase 3 trial will involve thousands of people and compare those who received the vaccine with those who only had a placebo.
Both refer to a previous Novavax study that tested its vaccine candidate to 56 volunteer. As a result, all were found to produce high levels of antibodies against the Covid-19 corona virus infection with no harmful side effects.
In another study, the researchers also found their vaccine candidate was very strong at protecting guinea pigs from infection with the same virus. In fact, there is no residual virus infection in the lungs or nose as an indication that the antibodies generated by the vaccine are able to specifically block the virus.
“This is incredible,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. According to his notes, the vaccine developed by Novavax provides the strongest protection for experimental monkeys compared to other Covid-19 vaccine candidates.
Also read:
China Leads the ‘Race’ for Covid-19 Vaccines in the World
Gregory Glenn, President of Research and Development at Novavax, said the company was ready to produce 100 million doses, or enough for 50 million people as much as two doses each, starting in early 2021. The company has received a $ 1.6 billion grant from the country’s Covid-19 vaccine research acceleration program and may get additional if the vaccine proves to be safe and effective, specifically for expanding production scales.
– .
