COVID-19 forced the entire world into a quarantine over 7 months ago, and companies are desperately trying to produce a vaccine to end the pandemic. There are many vaccines currently in trial, going through unprecedentedly quick stages to hopefully distribute the vaccine to the world soon.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson has developed an investigational vaccine called Ad.26.COV2.S and is leading the clinical trial as the sponsor. They are in their fourth Phase 3 and are taking adult volunteers. There will be around 60,000 volunteers for 215 sites across the U.S and internationally. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response, are also funding the trial. This trial has gone by really fast in terms of experiments. They are in Phase 3 after only 8 months. Recently, they had to pause their investigation because one of their participants got sick. Johnson & Johnson has not talked about this participant openly, though.
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca has developed an investigational COVID-19 vaccine called AZD1222. AstraZeneca recently entered into Phase 3 but then halted their investigation. One of their patients had developed an unexplained neurological condition in the U.K. It is routine for the trial to pause because they need to figure out what went wrong and if it is because of the vaccine. The trial has since restarted, but once again a volunteer came out with a neurological event. The trials had restarted once more which left many people in disbelief that they are not investigating the issue. The FDA has started its investigation into the trials in the U.S. There is not enough information yet if these neurological incidents are because of the vaccine.
Moderna
Moderna has developed a vaccine called mRNA-1273 and they were the first project to reach Phase 3 of clinical trials. Moderna was also the first vaccine to test on humans. Moderna is an unproven biotech company because they haven’t had a history of successful launches since they are new. Moderna could be cleared for distribution in December, but the CEO thinks that it will be around January or February. Right now they are analyzing how well the vaccine works when the subjects develop a symptomatic coronavirus. Their timeline of vaccine development is very close to Pfizer’s.
Pfizer
The drug company Pfizer has already made thousands of doses of a vaccine. They have started production at their labs in Belgium. If the final clinical trial is a success, then the vaccine will be distributed worldwide around December. The U.S lab hopes to make 100 million doses by December. The company is working with the German company BioNTech where they are running a trial on 44,000 people. The company has put about 2 billion dollars into the vaccine and are in the lead as of October. Pfizer has had some promising results. In phase 1, volunteers ages 18 through 55 produced neutralizing antibody levels 3.8 times higher than those seen in recovered coronavirus patients. And volunteers ages 65 through 85 produced levels 1.6 times those seen in recovered patients.
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