“We are doing the human trials because we don’t know the answer,” he said. “We are very pleased with these results, and these data increase our optimism about the potential of this candidate vaccine.”
The study was published Thursday in the journal Nature.
Testing of the vaccine began last week with volunteers in Belgium, some of whom receive a placebo. Testing also started this week at clinical trial sites in the United States, including in Beth Israel. Ultimately, some 1,000 healthy early-stage volunteers will be tested worldwide.
In the detailed study in Nature, the researchers gave seven slightly different experimental vaccines to 32 rhesus macaques, in groups of four to six monkeys. Each of the vaccines used a common cold virus to deliver a coronavirus antigen to cells to stimulate the immune system. Twenty other monkeys were injected with placebos.
After six weeks, all monkeys were exposed to the virus that causes COVID-19 by a swab inserted into the nose or throat. All six experimental vaccines provided some level of protection against infection, but one of the vaccines, the one now being tested in humans, provided the strongest protection.
After a group of six monkeys received that vaccine, none of them had detectable viruses in their lungs after being exposed to SARS-CoV-2. And only one of the six monkeys had detectable virus in their nasal cavity.
“These data demonstrate robust single-shot vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in non-human primates,” said the study published in Nature.
The researchers obtained the final results only about three weeks ago, Barouch said.
In contrast to a similar study published this week on another group of rhesus macaques that received an experimental messenger RNA vaccine developed by Moderna, based in Cambridge, and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, these monkeys received only one dose of the vaccine.
That could be a huge advantage for the Beth Israel / Johnson & Johnson vaccine, given how costly and difficult it is to provide a vaccine to hundreds of millions of people.
Barouch said he believes the vaccine developed by his hospital and Johnson & Johnson would provide much stronger protection if given in two doses. The clinical trial is testing both a single dose and a double dose regimen.
The candidate vaccine produced by New Jersey-based drug maker and Beth Israel is one of several that have received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Trump administration, which launched a program called Operation Warp Speed to accelerate development of the vaccine. Other federally funded experimental vaccines included those made by Moderna, AstraZeneca, and Novavax.
Jonathan Saltzman can be contacted at [email protected]
