A small business that has been developing new vaccines since Reagan was president, Novavax (NASDAQ: NVAX) announced its first victory in the late-stage clinical trial on Thursday afternoon. The company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, NVX-CoV2373, reduced the chance of volunteers getting COVID-19 by 89.3% compared to a placebo.
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Novavax’s first Phase 3 clinical trial comes from a 15,000-patient study in the UK. The majority of the positive cases reported were of the current British variant. NVX-CoV2373 seems just as effective in preventing the British variant as the original coronavirus strain.
Investigators conducted an interim analysis after 62 participants tested positive for COVID-19. All but six were in the placebo group. With a 95% confidence interval adjustment, this equates to an efficiency rate of 89.3%.
Of the aforementioned 62 cases, 32 have the British tribe, 24 the original tribe and six unknown. Extrapolating this limited sample, it appears that NVX-CoV2373 is 85.6% effective against the UK variant and 95.6% effective against the original recipe.
Unfortunately for those in the U.S., the Food and Drug Administration is unwilling to review an application for emergency authorization without results from a mostly local Phase 3 study. The company randomized more than 16,000 patients in a North American thesis to meet FDA requirements. It has a total enrollment target of 30,000 patients.