Friday 29 January 2021

No Moths on Novavax?

The US company Novavax seems to have a strong candidate to be the 4th Covid-19 vaccine, approved for use in the UK (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/28/novavax-covid-vaccine-shown-to-be-nearly-90-effective-in-uk-trial). Novavax's technology involves introducing a baclovirus, containing a spike gene for Sars-CoV-2, into moth cells. The infected moth cells produce proteins, that combine to form spikes (like those on the coronavirus). The spikes are then formed into nanoparticles, that can be injected into humans, to elicit the immune response, without introducing an actual Sars-CoV-2 virus. Phase 3 trials have been carried out in the UK on 15,000 subjects with almost 4000 being in the 65 and over age group. The vaccine (NVX-CoV2373) appears to be almost 90% effective in its protective effect. NVX-CoV2373 has also been shown to work well against the more infective B117 ('Kent') variant of Covid-19. Trials in South Africa are only at the phase 2 stage. This vaccine is not currently (it can be tweaked) as effective against the Covid-19 variant in that country. NVX-CoV2373 will be made in the North of England and 60m doses have been purchased by the government. It looks like we are getting quite a range of different and novel vaccine technologies?

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