The biotechnology firm Novavax said on Thursday that the coronavirus vaccine is more than 89% effective against protection against Covid-19 in the Phase Three clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom.
The results are based on 62 confirmed Covid-19 infections among the 15,000 participants in the trial. According to the company, 56 cases were observed in the placebo group, compared to six cases observed in the group that received the vaccine. This resulted in an estimated vaccine efficacy of 89.3%.
The shares in the company rose by more than 23% in after-hours trading.
With the results, the company “has the potential to play a key 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, researchers and regulators around the world to make the vaccine available as soon as possible.”
The study also found that the vaccine appears to be 85.6% effective against the British variant, also known as B.1.1.7. A separate phase two study in South Africa has shown that the vaccine is not nearly as effective against a new strain that is destroying the country.
The shot was still considered effective in protecting against the virus, but at an efficiency rate of only 49.4% among 44 Covid-19 cases in South Africa, where 90% of the cases contained the alarming new variant, the company said.
Due to the lower effectiveness against the strain in South Africa, Novavax said it intends to choose a modified version of the vaccine to better protect against the new strain in the coming days. It is planned 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 people as of Thursday, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Only two vaccines – from Pfizer and Moderna – have so far been allowed in the US.
In July, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, the US government announced that it would pay Novavax $ 1.6 billion to develop and manufacture the potential vaccine, with a goal of 100 million by 2021. deliver doses.
It is unclear whether the data on Thursday will be enough to give the Food and Drug Administration an emergency permit for Novavax, allowing distribution in the US. December.
The Novavax vaccine contains synthesized pieces of surface protein that the coronavirus uses to infect humans. The company said the vaccine was well tolerated, adding that “severe, severe and medically attended side effects occurred at low levels and were balanced between the vaccine and placebo groups.”
In August, the company said that the first phase of the trial data found that the vaccine elicited a promising immune response. Participants received two doses of the potential vaccine with an intramuscular injection, approximately 21 days apart. Novavax also said that the vaccine is well tolerated without serious adverse events being reported.