AstraZeneca Says COVID-19 ‘Vaccine for the World’ May Be 90% Effective

FILE PHOTO: In this illustration taken on October 31, 2020, vials with a label that reads “COVID-19 / Coronavirus Vaccine / Injection Only” and a medical syringe are seen in front of the AstraZeneca logo displayed. REUTERS / Dado Ruvic

LONDON – AstraZeneca said Monday its COVID-19 vaccine was 70% effective in pivotal trials and could be up to 90% effective, giving the global fight against the global pandemic a third new weapon that may be cheaper to manufacture, easier. to distribute and faster to scale than its rivals.

The British drugmaker said it will have up to 200 million doses by the end of 2020, about four times more than its US competitor Pfizer Inc. Seven hundred million doses could be ready globally as soon as the end of the first quarter of 2021.

“This means we have a vaccine for the world,” said Andrew Pollard, director of the vaccine group at the University of Oxford that developed the drug.

On average, the vaccine prevented 70% of COVID-19 cases in late-stage trials in Britain and Brazil. The success rate rose to 90% in a group of trial participants who accidentally received a half dose followed by a full dose. Efficacy was 62% if the full dose was given twice, as was the case for the majority of study participants.

No serious security events were confirmed, the company said, although little security data was provided.

AstraZeneca shares fell nearly 4% as investors perceived the efficacy data as less impressive than rival vaccines and could take longer to gain regulatory approval from the US Pfizer and Moderna, which reported that their vaccines were about 95% effective in preventing disease, had set the bar for success through the roof.

The AstraZeneca vaccine has advantages.

They cost governments a few dollars per injection, a fraction of the price of Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that use new and more complex technology.

It can also be transported and stored at normal refrigerator temperatures, which, according to the proponents, would facilitate distribution, especially in poor countries, than Pfizer’s, which must be shipped and stored at -70 ° C.

The 90% efficacy finding was a happy accident, AstraZeneca admitted, noting that it was the result of dosing error during trials. The half-dose regimen will first allow the company to seek approval based on an effectiveness much greater than 62%, which was still sufficient for a regulatory go-ahead based on previous discussions.

AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot said the smaller starting dose means limited supplies could be extended further to vaccinate more people.

‘It is not an endless pandemic’

Faster implementation means that countries that had been making plans to ration vaccines can distribute them more widely, which will help eventually stem the social and economic disruption of a pandemic that has killed 1.4 million people.

“Vaccines are now getting closer and closer to freeing us from the virus, emphatically demonstrating that this is not an endless pandemic,” British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told parliament on Monday.

Matt Hancock, the UK health secretary, which has reserved 100 million doses for its 67 million people, said most of the vaccine launch will take place from January to March.

“We hope that sometime after Easter things can go back to normal,” he said.

In poor countries, where the logistics of rival vaccine distribution posed a greater challenge, the effect of a cheaper and simpler alternative could be even more pronounced.

“The great advantage of having the vaccine is that it can be stored, transported and handled at 2-8 degrees Celsius (35.6 ° -46.4 ° F) and we have that storage facility,” said Zahid Maleque, Minister of Health. from Bangladesh, which is buying 30 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Philippines is close to concluding talks with AstraZeneca on the purchase of at least 20 million doses of vaccines, a senior official with the coronavirus task force said Monday.

World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said the WHO is eager to see full efficacy and safety data and encouraged other vaccine developers, saying large amounts and a variety of injections will be needed.

“We have to cover… billions and billions of people. We will need all the manufacturing capacity in the world to do that, ”Swaminathan said.

‘We will be much happier’

There was criticism of AstraZeneca’s data release.

Healthcare analysts at SVB Leerink said AstraZeneca had not disclosed enough information about safety events that led to a pause in Phase III trials and cited other limitations of the study.

Leerink noted that only a small number of people had received the smallest first dose.

Leerink analyst Geoffrey Porges suggested the vaccine was unlikely to receive US approval, noting that the trials did not appear to meet the US requirements for representation of minorities, the elderly and other populations. high-risk.

AstraZeneca said it plans to seek approval to modify its US study for more data on the smaller starting dose.

Some scientists said that the three vaccines could prove comparable in the end.

“I think it’s real silly to start trying to distinguish these three (Pfizer / Moderna / Astra) based on snippets of Phase III data from press releases,” said Danny Altmann, professor of immunology at Imperial College London. .

“My suspicion is that by the time we are a year later, we will use all three vaccines with about 90% protection, and we will be much happier.”

The AstraZeneca vaccine uses a modified version of a chimpanzee cold virus to instruct cells to fight the target virus, a different approach than Pfizer and Moderna, which rely on a new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA).

AstraZeneca will now prepare for regulatory submission of the data to regulators around the world and will seek a WHO emergency use list to accelerate availability in poor countries.

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