An experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by biotechnology company Novavax is 89.3 percent effective at preventing Covid-19, the company announced Thursday.
Results of the phase 3 trial of Novavax in the UK showed the effectiveness of the candidate for the vaccine and showed that it is protected against the UK variant of the virus. Results from another trial, in South Africa, showed that it was also effective against the variant that appeared there, although the effectiveness was lower.
Stanley Erck, president and CEO of Novavax, based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, said the test results showed that the vaccine “could play a potential role in resolving this global public health crisis.” ‘
Novavax, which received funding last year as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, is conducting vaccination trials in the United States, the United Kingdom, Mexico and South Africa.
An interim analysis of the company’s trial in the UK, which included more than 15,000 participants aged 18 to 84, found that the vaccine was 95.6 percent effective against the virus and 85.6 percent effective against the more contagious British variant.
The findings were based on 62 infections among trial participants, who received a two-dose vaccination or a placebo. Six of the observed infections occurred in the group that received the vaccine.
In the phase 2 trial in South Africa, however, the efficiency was 49.4 percent. The study was conducted on a much smaller group of 4400 people, many of whom were HIV-positive. In HIV-negative trial participants, the vaccine was 60 percent effective in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, Novavax said.
The analysis of Novavax was based on 44 infections among the participants in the South African trial, of which 15 cases were reported in the group that received the vaccine. Ninety percent of the Covid-19 cases analyzed in the trial were caused by the South African variant, the company reports.
Moderna announced this week that the vaccine appears to be less effective against the South African variant, although he said that protective antibodies remain above the protective levels. In a Pfizer study, which was not evaluated by a peer, it was found that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is only slightly less effective against the South African strain.
Unlike the vaccines developed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which use fragments of genetic code known as messenger RNA to trigger the immune system into protective antibodies, Novavax’s vaccine is dependent on synthesized coronavirus proteins around the body’s immune system. too late to start.
