Three COVID-19 Vaccines Are Ready For Final Stage of Testing

THREE COVID-19 VACCINES ARE READY FOR FINAL STAGE OF TESTING

 Over the course of the summer, the federal government plans to fund three phase III clinical trials for experimental coronavirus vaccines.

Each of the three vaccines will undergo this final phase of testing on about 30,000 human participants, The Wall Street Journal reports, half of whom will receive a vaccine injection and the other half an inert placebo.

The vaccine developed by Moderna Inc will begin its phase III trial in July, followed soon after by those developed by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson. Normally, reaching this point can take years, but coronavirus vaccines have been developed and tested on a vastly-accelerated timeline.

There are multiple phases of clinical research necessary before a medication or vaccine is granted regulatory approval. 

Phase 0 studies how the human body processes a drug. 

Phase I identifies dangerous side effects and other safety concerns,  

Phase II trials measure whether the drug actually treats the condition it’s supposed to.

Phase III: large-scale tests that compare the drug or vaccine against a placebo. Many drugs don’t ever reach this final stage of the process, so the fact that three COVID-19 vaccines are already there is a promising sign for the fight to end this pandemic.

At this date in early June 2020 there are twenty-three vaccine candidates, proposed by pharmaceutical manufacturers.  Vaccines are a category of drugs developed by specialized companies.  

These 23 companies are working on coronavirus treatments or vaccines. If you want the details, click here.

A mix of legacy drug makers and small startups have stepped forward with plans to develop vaccines or treatments that target the infection caused by the novel coronavirus.It is a team effort to develop a vaccine pipeline.  The pipeline has been in existence for decades, ready at a moment's notice to manufacture this year's model on the assembly line. The design goes all the way back to Henry Ford's idea of automobile assembly.

In the U.S., many of the publicly traded companies that are initiating development have received funding from two organizations: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, or NIAID, a division of the National Institutes of Health. Some companies have also received funding from Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, a global organization based in Oslo that has provided millions of dollars in funding to vaccine makers. Other companies are funding trials by themselves or through life-sciences-company partnerships.

Three COVID-19 Vaccines Are Ready For Final Stage of Testing