Canberra: A US biotechnology company began injecting a prospective coronavirus vaccine Tuesday into people in Melbourne. The biotechnology company is hoping of releasing a proven vaccine this year.
Human trials begin
‘Novavax’ will inject 131 volunteers in the first phase of the testing the safety of the vaccine. It will also look for signs of its effectiveness. This information was provided by the company’s research chief Dr Gregory Glenn said.
About a dozen experimental vaccines against the coronavirus are in early stages of testing. Some experiments are yet to start. Work on these vaccines are going on in China, the US and Europe. It’s not clear that any will prove safe and effective. But many work in different ways, made with different technologies, increases the odds that at least one approach might succeed.
Researchers hopeful
““We are in parallel making doses, making the vaccine in anticipation that we’ll be able to show it is working. Hopefully we will be able to start deploying it by the end of this year,” Glenn said. He was holding a virtual news conference in Melbourne from ‘Novavax’ headquarters in Maryland.
Animal testing suggested the vaccine is effective in low doses. ‘Novavax’ could manufacture at least 100 million doses this year and 1.5 billion in 2021, he said.
Investment boost for research
Manufacture of the vaccine, named NVX-CoV2373, was being scaled up with USD 388 million investment. It has been done by Norway-based ‘Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations’.
The results of the first phase of clinical trials in Melbourne and Brisbane are expected to be known in July. Thousands of candidates in several countries would then become involved in a second phase.
The process in which the vaccine works
The trial began with six volunteers being injected Tuesday with the potential vaccine in Melbourne. Most of the experimental vaccines in progress aim to train the immune system to recognise the ‘spike’ protein. It is this protein that studs the coronavirus’ outer surface. ,
Novavax added another new kind to that list, what’s called a re-combinant vaccine. Novavax used genetic engineering to grow copies of the coronavirus spike protein. This was donein giant vats of insect cells. Scientists then extracted and purified the protein. Then they packaged it into virus-sized nanoparticles.
“The way we make a vaccine is we never touch the virus,” a ‘Novavax’ researcher said. “But ultimately, it looks just like a virus to the immune system,” he added.
AP