The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has already infected more than one crore people worldwide. A potential cure for COVID-19 is among the most urgent needs on the planet as of now, and countries around the globe are striving to develop vaccines that could completely eradicate the virulent disease from its roots.
While the COVID-19 vaccine race remains ongoing, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), in one of the biggest developments, announced on Friday that it plans on launching the indigenous vaccine Covaxin for public use in India by August 15, 2020.
Besides Covaxin, India also has another potential vaccine candidate in Zydus Cadila. Both Covaxin and Zydus Cadila have received approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for human clinical trials. Meanwhile, at least five other Indian companies—Serum Institute, Biological E, Indian Immunologicals, Mynvax, and Panacea Biotec—are also working on COVID-19 vaccines of their own.
On the global scale, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has indicated that about 18 vaccine candidates are already in the human clinical evaluation phases, while 129 remain in the preclinical evaluation phase.
Among all these candidates, five seem to be the more promising frontrunners. These contenders are as follows:
AstraZeneca/Oxford
Drugmaker Astra Zeneca teaming up with Oxford University information on phase one of their testing is due very soon. It is one of the most advanced vaccine programs in development for COVID-19 right now researchers at the University of Oxford started the first phase of human clinical trials last month and five different centers in southern England with data expected to be available next month they say if all goes well a later stage trial could begin by the middle of this year. A key question for any successful vaccine though will be the ability to manufacture it at a large enough scale that is where if a partner like Astra Zeneca comes in under the agreement with Oxford the British drug giant will be responsible for the development and worldwide manufacturing and distribution if the clinical trials prove that the vaccine works. If the trials are successful, about 100 million doses could be developed by the end of this year.
Moderna, mRNA-1273
The Moderna vaccine candidate is an RNA-based vaccine. It all started with isolation of the virus from an infected patient in China the coronavirus was sequenced. And its genetic information was uploaded to a public database working together with scientists at the NIH. Moderna identified the sequence for a key protein on the surface of the virus called the spike protein as a good vaccine candidate. The instructions for making the spike protein were then encoded into an instruction molecule called mRNA which could be administered directly to patients as a vaccine. The vaccine is injected just like other vaccines the mRNA is taken to immune cells where it instructs cells to make copies of the spike protein as if the cells had been infected by the coronavirus. Other immune cells are then able to learn about the spike protein and develop ways to protect the person if they ever come into contact with the actual coronavirus.
What makes this approach different is that you don’t need to make the virus itself to make a vaccine a time consuming and intensive process instead you use the information from the virus and administer the information directly to the patient. Essentially the patient makes their own vaccine this cuts out the middleman. Using this approach NIH and Madonna were able to go from sequence to a vaccine ready for human testing and record time just 42 days.
CanSino
CanSino coronavirus vaccine generates an immune response. Vaccine company CanSino Biologics claims that their vaccine candidate, Ad5-nCoV, generated an immune response against COVID-19 in its phase-one human trials. The company said there is enough evidence to encourage further study on the vaccine, which they began phase-one trials on in March. The company, which developed the vaccine with the Beijing Institute of Technology, saw its shares rise by 8% on May 25 at HK$239 per share. The vaccine has entered phase-two trials, which test the candidate at low doses of 50 billion virus particles and medium doses of 500 billion virus particles. In a paper published on May 22 in the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, the researchers detailed their findings during the vaccine’s early-stage trial. They conducted the trial at a number of laboratories and on 108 human test subjects aged 18 to 60 who received either a low, medium or high dose of Ad5-nCoV. Biotech and pharma industry news site BioPharmaDive reports that the researchers kept the test subjects in a designated hotel for 14 days post-vaccination. They were also measured for immune responses two and four weeks after they were vaccinated. The researchers found that nearly all the test subjects developed binding antibodies by day 28. 63 of the test subjects developed neutralizing antibodies that could destroy live coronavirus in a test tube. The 63 test subjects who exhibited this response included 27 of the 36 who were given a high dose of the vaccine. The test subjects also exhibited T-cell responses, which the researchers believe shows signs of broader immune involvement. The study noted several side effects such as fever, headache, muscle pain, and fatigue, but none of these were classified as “serious”. However, five of the test subjects given a high dose of the vaccine, two given a medium dose, and two given a low dose exhibited Grade 3 fever.
Though the vaccine shows promise, the researchers warned that it is still unclear what levels of antibodies are necessary to protect one from infection by COVID-19. They said they “are unable to predict the protection” of the vaccine “on the basis of the vaccine-elicited immune responses in this study”. CanSino is reportedly the first to have the clinical trial results of a coronavirus vaccine published in a peer-reviewed medical journal. It was tested on 108 individuals, who reportedly displayed strong responses.
Pfizer/BioNTech
The vaccine candidate developed by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer is in its phase I and phase II trials. Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech starting the dosing of the first U.S. participants in the clinical trial of their experimental vaccines for COVID-19. Now they’re actually going to be testing four different vaccine candidates with the similar technology to what we’ve heard about from Moderna messenger RNA they’re going to be enrolling up to 360 healthy subjects in this trial in the United States and multiple sites and remember they already started their trial in Germany on April 23rd. Now they’re not the first into the clinic in vaccine development but Pfizer is the biggest company to get this far and in terms of their manufacturing plans. They say if all goes well they do plan to have millions of doses available this year potentially hundreds of millions of doses available in 2021 with manufacturing sites from Pfizer in Massachusetts Michigan Missouri and Belgium and BioNTech sites in Germany.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals/International Vaccine Institute
Inovio Pharmaceuticals/International Vaccine Institute
The experimental DNA-based coronavirus vaccine being developed by Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc has shown promising results in its early-stage human trials. how are they able to move so quickly into human trials well for two reasons they have better technology that allows them to use just a DNA to develop a vaccine and very dedicated employees. They have a 200% strong employees that are magnified by you know thousands of their collaborators and partners and manufacturers out there allowing them to move very fast people have to recognize that this isn’t just a trial that is done with any old institution you’re doing it within Kansas City. They’ve done a lot of collaborative work over the years but they’re also looking forward because phase one studies they can do anywhere but Phase two and beyond they want to leverage some of the top institutions like the University of Pennsylvania. You can’t move fast of the vaccine because we are of course reluctant to give a healthy person something it could get them sick given that high hurdle it is rather amazing you already do it so they must the authorities must feel quite confident in what you’re doing well you know. The vaccine is in its Phase I and II clinical trials and is being tested on 40 volunteers between the age group of 18 to 50 in the US.
