The Bill Gates-funded vaccine is working. What conclusions do the doctors have after the first phase of the clinical study?

CureVac’s experimental vaccine against COVID-19 has elicited an immune response in humans, the German biotech company said on Monday (November 2) as it is nearing the start of large-scale testing this year as the race to stop the pandemic is is stepping up, Reuters reports.

“We are very encouraged by the interim data from Phase I,” Chief Executive Franz-Werner Haas said in a statement.

The biotech company relies on the technique called messenger RNA (mRNA), as does Moderna, as well as BioNTech and its partner Pfizer, although they began large-scale clinical trials in humans in late July.

CureVac indicated that its potential vaccine, known as CVnCoV, was generally well tolerated and the results strongly supported the company’s plans to launch the final phase of human testing before the end of the year.

CureVac, backed by German biotech investor Dietmar Hopp, the Gates Foundation and GlaxoSmithKline, said the volunteers had developed a level of neutralizing antibodies equal to that of people who had recovered from a severe case of COVID-19.

The pandemic, which has caused more than 1.2 million deaths worldwide, has launched a race to develop a vaccine, with some 45 experimental compounds being tested in humans.

AstraZeneca in the UK, in collaboration with the University of Oxford, is also among the main competitors, and results from the last phase of clinical trials are expected this year, but its candidate vaccine is based on another virus, not mRNA. , with the role of delivering genetic instructions to the body for an immunizing effect.

Anthony Fauci, America’s leading infectious disease expert, said Thursday that the first doses of a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine will likely be available to some high-risk Americans in late December or early January.

CureVac’s hopes of delivering a vaccine in much lower doses compared to its other competitors based on the mRNA technique could suffer after choosing the highest concentration of five dose variants – 2 to 12 micrograms per injection – for your phase III study.

BioNTech and Pfizer have indicated that the 30-microgram doses they opted for in this advanced phase of clinical trials have previously been shown to produce higher levels of antibodies than those seen in people who recovered after COVID-19.

The modern company, which, like BioNTech, hopes to have the first efficacy data from its large-scale clinical study this month, is testing a 100-microgram dose, which is also shown to trigger a higher immune response than seen in the case. of cured patients.

CureVac, which was listed on NASDAQ in August, announced that its Phase I study has so far included 250 healthy people ages 18-60 from Germany and Belgium.

The company added that the injection also generated T cells against the coronavirus, another essential indicator of an effective immune response, but tests are ongoing.

CureVac said that the side effects occurred especially after the second injection of the two-dose program and these included fatigue, headaches, chills, muscle aches and, to a lesser degree, fever. These symptoms “improved rapidly, generally within 24 to 48 hours,” the company said.