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LONDON (REUTERS) – Britain plans to host clinical trials in which volunteers are deliberately infected with the new coronavirus to test the effectiveness of vaccine candidates, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday (September 23), citing people involved in the project.
So-called “challenge trials” are expected to begin in January at a quarantine facility in London, the report said, adding that around 2,000 participants had signed up through a US-based advocacy group, 1Day Sooner .
The studies will be funded by the government, FT reported, although 1Day Sooner said it would also launch a request for public funding for a biocontainment facility large enough to quarantine 100 to 200 participants.
Imperial College London, purportedly the academic leader of the trials, did not confirm the studies.
“Imperial continues to participate in a wide range of exploratory discussions related to Covid-19 research, with a variety of partners. We have nothing more to report at this time, ”said a spokeswoman who was asked about the possibility of impeachment trials.
Any trial conducted in the UK must be approved by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the health regulator that deals with safety and protocol.
The British government and the MHRA did not immediately respond to Reuters requests for comment, but 1Day Sooner, which advocates for challenge trials to accelerate vaccine development, welcomed the report.
“1Day Sooner congratulates the British government on its plans to conduct challenge trials to test vaccines,” it said in a statement, confirming that it would request the government to house trial participants.
The industry has seen discussions in recent months about the possibility of having to inject healthy volunteers with the new coronavirus if drug makers struggled to find enough patients for final trials.
The FT report said that volunteers would first be inoculated with a vaccine and then receive a challenge dose of the coronavirus. He did not mention the vaccines that would be evaluated in the project.
British drugmaker AstraZeneca and French firm Sanofi told Reuters that their vaccine candidates were not involved in the program.
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