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Modern Inc said Monday that its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19 based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial, becoming the second American company in a week to report results that far exceed expectations.
Below are the reactions to the news.
Eleanor Riley, Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the University of Edinburgh
“Although the numbers are small, this trial also gives an indication that vaccination is effective in older people and BAME and prevents serious diseases, all of which are key to allowing the world to start opening up again. The absolute prerequisite for a COVID-19 vaccine is that it prevents people from getting sick enough to require hospital treatment and prevents people from dying. Preliminary data reported here suggests that this vaccine, and by extension, the Pfizer / BioNtech vaccine, will achieve this goal.
“The safety data also looks promising. The side effects of vaccination appear to match those typically seen with other adult vaccines, including the seasonal flu vaccine that is given in many millions of doses each year.
“An important question mark is whether this vaccine, or any of the vaccines currently in trials, prevents disease transmission. Vaccines that prevent symptomatic disease are likely to reduce the duration and level of infectivity, and thus reduce transmission, but we do not yet know if this effect will be large enough to make a significant difference in the spread of the virus. within communities. .
“But overall, this is excellent news. Having more than one source of an effective vaccine will increase the world’s supply and hopefully help us all return to something close to normal sometime in 2021. “
Prof. Trudie Lang, Director, The Global Health Network, Nuffield Department of Medicine, University of Oxford
“It is very good news to see another vaccine appear with efficacy results similar to those reported last week from Pfizer. This is also an interim analysis, which means there were enough cases within the vaccinated volunteers to give statistical significance and allow the team to break the blind to determine who had the active vaccine and who had placebo.
“Here they found that out of 95 COVID cases, 90 had received the placebo and five the active vaccine. These first results suggest that there was a representation in different age groups and diverse communities in the protected group. This is really encouraging and further demonstrates that a COVID vaccine is a real probability and that having more than one supplier should help ensure better and more equitable global availability.
“This vaccine is also an mRNA vaccine, so many of the same questions remain that we have been discussing with the Pfizer vaccine and will be carefully scrutinized by regulators.”
Stephen Evans, Professor of Pharmacoepidemiology, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
“This announcement of Modern It’s an added boost that vaccines are found to be not only acceptable, but far more effective than we had anticipated. This press release is more specific than others, as it confirms the numbers in each group, which could be guessed, but confirming is helpful.
“The variety of minor adverse effects reported is not surprising and is typical of almost any vaccine. These reactions tend to be local to the injection site and are rarely long-lasting or severe.
“Although they reported that the efficacy is greater than 94%, there is statistical uncertainty in this; But based on these data, the likely efficacy will be better than 85%, which would be higher than most scientists would have expected.
“This is the first study to report severe cases, and while uncertainty remains, the finding that there were no severe cases with the vaccine and 11 cases with placebo is very strong evidence that the vaccine prevents both severe and mild illnesses. Compelling evidence regarding deaths will likely only be obtained when the vaccine is in use.
“A wide range of people with illnesses and minority groups, as well as a considerable number of older patients, were included in the trials. We will need a lot more data and a full report or publication to see if the benefit is consistent across all groups, especially the elderly, but this is definitely encouraging progress. “
Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London
“This news from Modern it is tremendously exciting and greatly increases optimism that we will have a selection of good vaccines in the coming months. “
“This latest press release is based on a study of 30,000 American adults, including many seniors or high-risk people. This gives us confidence that the results are relevant to people who are most at risk for COVID-19 and who need vaccines the most. “
“Modern They have also announced that the vaccine can be kept in a conventional freezer (-20 degrees Celsius) for up to 6 months, and that once thawed the vaccine can be kept for up to 30 days in a standard refrigerator (2 to 8 degrees Celsius). This makes the vaccine much easier to administer.
“In terms of side effects, the news is pretty good too. The first dose caused pain at the injection site in about 3% of people; the second dose was associated with transient generalized symptoms in about 10% of people with fatigue, muscle aches, and flu-like symptoms. This seems to indicate that they got the correct dose with acceptable adverse events. These effects are what we would expect with a vaccine that works and induces a good immune response ”.
“We need more complete details than we have in this press release, but this announcement adds to the general sentiment of optimism about vaccines for Covid-19. What we still don’t know is how long protective immunity can last. For that, we will have to wait. ” —Josephine Mason’s Report
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