Biotechnology firm Novavax said on Thursday that its coronavirus vaccine was more than 89% effective in protecting against Covid-19 in its third-phase clinical trial in the United Kingdom.
The results were based on 62 infections confirmed by Covid-19 among the 15,000 study participants. The company said 56 cases were seen in the placebo group compared to six in the group that received the vaccine. This led to an estimated vaccine efficacy of 89.3%, he said.
The company’s shares increased by over 23% when trading after the program.
With the results, the company “has the potential to play an important role in resolving this global public health crisis,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with our partners, collaborators, investigators and regulators around the world to make the vaccine available as soon as possible.”
The study also found that the vaccine appeared to be 85.6% effective against the UK variant, also known as B.1.1.7. A separate second phase study in South Africa showed that the vaccine is not as effective against a new strain that is devastating the country.
The image was still considered effective in protecting against the virus, but at an efficacy rate of only 49.4% in 44 Covid-19 cases in South Africa, where 90% of cases contain the new worrying variant, the company said.
As a result of the lower efficacy against the South African strain, Novavax said it intends to choose a modified version of the vaccine to better protect against the new strain “in the coming days”. He plans to test the modified vaccine in the second quarter of this year.
Novavax is among several companies developing a vaccine to fight the virus, which has infected more than 101 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.2 million since Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Only two vaccines – from Pfizer and Moderna – have been authorized for use in the US so far.
In July, the US government, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, announced that it would pay Novavax $ 1.6 billion to develop and manufacture the potential vaccine to deliver 100 million doses by the end of the year. at the beginning of 2021.
It is unclear whether Thursday’s data will be enough for Novavax to receive an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to allow distribution in the United States. The company began a lawsuit late with 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico late. December.
The Novavax vaccine contains synthesized pieces of surface proteins that the coronavirus uses to infect humans. The company said the vaccine was well tolerated, adding that “severe, serious and medically involved adverse events occurred at low levels and were balanced between the vaccine and placebo groups.”
In August, the company said data from the first phase of the study found that its vaccine generated a promising immune response. Participants received two doses of potential vaccine by intramuscular injection approximately 21 days apart. Novavax also said that the vaccine was well tolerated, with no serious adverse events reported.