COVID-19, Tracking Vaccine Development, & The Sharing of Data
There are two main ways that the pharmaceutical industry is planning to eliminate the threat of COVID-19.
One is through the development and manufacture of a vaccine to provide immunity to the general population, and is largely a preventative measure.
The second is through the use of antiviral drugs, whose aim is to treat patients currently infected (similar to antibiotics, except targeted at viruses rather than bacteria).
Unfortunately as of yet there are no approved antivirals for this disease, nor are there any approved vaccines. However, the pharmaceutical industry is moving rapidly to improve the treatment options.
Since the 2003 outbreak of another variety of deadly coronavirus, SARS, Pharma have been busy researching ways to handle diseases that can be produced by this family of viruses. This means there is already a lot of data to examine. The sharing of this historical knowledge across corporate borders, in the quest to find a vaccine or effective antiviral, is what a collaborative platform like CTi is all about.
In terms of vaccine development, the good news is that leaps in technology such as the ability to rapidly sequence virus genomes and to create vaccines out of messenger RNA, are speeding up the process of vaccine development.
New types of antiviral drugs and immunotherapy treatments can treat a wide range of diseases, meaning that drugs already in the development pipeline or even already treating other diseases in patients, could shorten the time it will take to make an effective medicine to fight COVID-19.
The not so good news is that developing new antiviral drug treatments still takes a very long time — in most cases at least a decade from discovery to the market. Sharing and deriving insights from this sort of historical data is hugely important, but unfortunately not yet routinely undertaken to discover potential insights.
We believe in the future, the sort of invaluable work being done right now in relation to COVID-19, will be coordinated across the industry through the intelligent sharing of data.
ClinTex will be tracking and regularly updating the development of new vaccines and antiviral medicines for COVID-19 below, from research to testing to commercial release.
As a final note — our thoughts are with everyone effected by the Covid-19 pandemic around the globe, and we wholeheartedly applaud the brave work being undertaken by all in the health care industry in this time of crisis.
LATEST ON ANTIVIRAL AND VACCINES DEVELOPMENT: UPDATE: 16/03/20
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK): Vaccines
British pharmaceutical giant GSK is working with two outside organizations for preclinical studies on Covid-19 vaccines using its pandemic vaccine adjuvant platform, a technology used to develop HPV and flu vaccines in the past.
GSK has provided the technology to University of Queensland program funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), an international organization based in Oslo, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, a Chinese biotech company that’s making a vaccine called Covid-19 S-Trimer.
Johnson & Johnson: Vaccines and Antivirals
In collaboration with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a division under the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Johnson & Johnson is exploring candidates for both vaccines and antiviral drugs.
Similar to GSK, the American pharma giant is using its vaccine platform technology, which was used for the developing an experimental Ebola vaccine in 2009.
“We are also in discussions with other partners, that if we have a vaccine candidate with potential, we aim to make it accessible to China and other parts of the world,” Paul Stoffels, Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientific officer, said in a statement last month.
The company aims to start a Phase 1 clinical trial by the end of 2020, Stoffel said last week.
Inovio Pharmaceuticals: Vaccine INO-4800
Inovio recently completed the preclinical testing of a DNA-based vaccine called INO-4800. And clinical trials are expected to begin in April with patients in the U.S., as well as China and South Korea.
The company expects to have first trial results in the fall and have one million vaccines doses ready by the end of the year.
Moderna: Vaccine mRNA-1273
Biotech startup Moderna is developing an RNA-based vaccine candidate called mRNA-1273 through a program funded by CEPI. Last month, the company shipped a batch of the vaccine to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a division under the National Institutes of Health. Clinical trials are expected to start next week and conclude on June 1 next year.
Gilead Sciences: Remdesivir
A frontrunner among existing Covid-19 therapy projects, Gilead’s antiviral drug, Remdesivir, is currently used in a phase 3 trial on over 1,000 patients around the world.
The experimental drug was first tested on Covid-19 patients in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. Last month, the NIAID allowed the company to expand phase 3 trials to other countries hit by the virus.
Trial results from China can be expected as soon as April.
Other Headlines:
U.S. Offered ‘Large Sum’ to German Company for Access to Coronavirus Vaccine Research, German Officials Say
CORONAVIRUS VACCINE AT LEAST A YEAR AWAY, BUT TREATMENT COULD BEHERE IN MONTHS
Human trials for a coronavirus vaccine could begin ‘within a few weeks,’ top US health official says
