One of the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers raised hopes that one, if not several, Covid-19 vaccines could be ready for use by the end of the year.
Emphasising that even the most promising candidates may yet fail, AstraZeneca chief executive Pascal Soriot said he was hopeful that at least one vaccine may be proved safe and effective in the coming months.
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AstraZeneca has teamed up with Oxford University on what is seen as a leading hope for the first vaccine.
The first phase of that trial ended last week and the results will be announced “very soon”, Mr Soriot said.
Hopeful of success
More generally, he said several of the dozens of vaccine development projects in development around the world may produce positive results in a matter of months.
“The hope of many people is that we will have a vaccine, hopefully several, before the end of this year,” said Mr Soriot.
“So before the end of the year, hopefully we’ll have a vaccine, that’s what we’re all aiming at, and working at, to achieve. But we don’t know whether these drugs will be successful,” he cautioned.
Albert Bourla, chief executive of the drug giant Pfizer, is also hopeful about producing an early vaccine.
“If things go well and the stars are aligned, we will have enough evidence on safety and efficacy so that we can feel comfortable and the [regulators] can feel comfortable to have a vaccine around October.”
‘Early next year’
Meanwhile, Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer of the US drugs giant Johnson & Johnson giant, said of his group’s vaccine efforts: “We hope to have vaccine efficacy data early next year.”
He said it was important to develop more than one vaccine, if possible, since as many as 15 billion doses could be required to immunise the whole world – if, as with the MMR vaccine – two doses per person end up being needed.
Producing that many of a single vaccine would be extraordinarily challenging, experts say. But having several alternatives with different production methods and ingredients would allow the manufacturing and distribution processes to be spread between different groups.
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Regulatory hurdles
Having several vaccines to choose from could also help satisfy differing regulatory regimes.
“We need several [vaccines] because up to 15bn vaccines might be needed and not all candidates would go all over the world, depending on the medical features. So I think somewhere between five and ten would definitely be needed to serve the whole world,” Mr Stoffels said.
Last month, Eric von Hofe, chief scientific officer of the UK drugs company, Nugenerex Immuno-Oncology, said:“By definition, a pandemic spans multiple different regulatory jurisdictions.”
“A lot of different countries are going to have their own approach in terms of what they want to see in a vaccine.”
As the process plays out, experts are “going to be getting a lot of new information” about how the various vaccines stack up, he said, which will guide regulatory decisions, he said.
Vaccine booster
Meanwhile, GlaxoSmithKline raised hopes of several vaccines becoming available as it announced plans to produce one billion doses of a Covid-19 vaccine booster. The company will increase the manufacture of it’s ‘adjuvant’ substance which is added to vaccines to make them more effective.
Analysts said the adjuvant can supercharge vaccines, meaning that more can be produced.
