Drugmakers will likely have produced a billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of next year, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the United States' top infectious disease official, said Wednesday.
"We are likely going to have maybe tens of million of doses in the early part of [next] year. But as we get into 2021, the manufacturers tell us that they will have hundreds of millions and likely a billion doses by the end of 2021," Fauci said in an interview with Reuters.
That, of course, depends on an effective vaccine actually being developed and approved. "I'm cautiously optimistic, though you can never guarantee things with a vaccine," Fauci commented.
Before then, however, there will be another cycle of infection.
"I hope and feel it's possible that by the time we get through 2021 and go around for another cycle, that we'll have this under control," Fauci said. "Do I think we're going to have a much, much better control one full year from this winter? I think so."
Have a news tip? Email this reporter: cdavis@insider.com
Researchers and companies developing Covid-19 vaccines are taking new steps to tackle a longtime challenge: Those who need the vaccines most urgently, including Black and Latino people, are least likely to participate in clinical trials to determine whether they work safely.
Racial and ethnic minority groups are more likely to be hospitalized and die from the new coronavirus, partly due to socioeconomic factors and underlying health conditions, data show. But clinical trials to evaluate drugs and vaccines historically underrepresent...
The U.S. has agreed to pay Johnson and Johnson more than $1 billion to create 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine in a deal announced Wednesday by the company.The Johnson and Johnson vaccine is in its experimental phase, currently using early-stage human trials in the U.S. and Belgium. Late-stage human trials of the vaccine are scheduled for September, according to Johnson and Johnsons Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Paul Stoffels.We are scaling up production in the U.S. and worldwide to deliver a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for emergency use, said Stoffels.As part of the agreed-upon deal, the U.S. can order up to 200 million additional doses.The U.S. already has given the company $456 million to work on creating a vaccine. Johnson and Johnsons goal is to deliver more than 1 billion doses of the vaccine by 2021.The vaccine the company is working on, Ad26.COV2.S, uses the same technology previously used by the company for its experimental Ebola vaccine, which was used in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 2019.If Johnson and Johnson produces the vaccine, it will deliver it to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) on a not-for-profit basis. The vaccine will be available after approval for emergency use authorization by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.So far, this is Johnson and Johnsons first deal to provide doses of its potential vaccine to a country, although the company also is in talks with the European Union.In addition, a few other companies also have made deals with the U.S. for potential COVID-19 vaccines. The U.S. recently announced a deal with drugmakers Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline for up to $2.1 billion for 100 million doses of a vaccine.In late July, deals between the U.S. and Pfizer and BioNTech were announced, as well, totaling $1.95 million for 100 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.
The latest development in the Department of Justices China Initiative occurred earlier this month, as the DOJ unsealed an 11-count indictment charging two Chinese nationals with stealing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of trade secrets, intellectual property, and other valuable business information including potential COVID-19 research. The two Chinese hackers allegedly worked for their own benefit and together with the Ministry of State Security, Chinas intelligence and security agency, to infiltrate the electronic networks of a number of targets including several American biotech firms publicly known for work on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, and testing technology.
The DOJs indictment alleges a lengthy and wide-ranging scheme that lasted over a decade and targeted companies in a number of countries, including the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Spain, and Australia. Though media reports analyzing the indictment have focused on the COVID-19 research referenced therein, in fact the indictment is much broader. Targeted industries included, among others, high tech manufacturing; medical device, civil, and industrial engineering; business, educational, and gaming software; solar energy; pharmaceuticals; [and] defense. The trade secrets allegedly stolen by the Chinese hackers included intellectual property from at least eight known victims, which consisted of source code, technology designs, manufacturing processes, test mechanisms and results, and pharmaceutical chemical structures. In recent months, the two Chinese hackers allegedly searched for vulnerabilities and conducted reconnaissance on the electronic networks of American companies known publicly to be working on COVID-19 vaccines and antiviral drugs.
The COVID-19 research theft allegations follow recent claims from several Western intelligence agencies, including the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, that hackers linked to the Russian government attacked academic and pharmaceutical research institutions involved in COVID-19 vaccine development.
Like the four Chinese nationals who allegedly hacked into the computer network of Equifax covered here, the two charged hackers in this case will likely never be prosecuted in the U.S.unless they travel outside of China. However, it is apparent the DOJ will continue its focus on the investigation and prosecution of intellectual property and trade secret theft, even if it is conducted by individuals aided and protected by foreign governments. Indeed, this is the first indictment that alleges China is protecting criminal hackers in return for their services.
In our initial post summarizing the China Initiative, we encouraged U.S. companies operating in China and Chinese companies to remain on guard for trade secret issues. These recent and high-profile developments only further emphasize that guidance.
Dr. Francis Collins also offered his thoughts on whether Houston should reopen schools to in-person learning.
The third stage of a clinical trial is underway and about 30,000 volunteers are expected to take part. Vaccine candidates will be tested at 89 clinical research sites in the United States.
Here's what Dr.Collins had to say about the vaccine.
Q: How long before a vaccine is available to the public?
Collins: "We would imagine it's going to take at least three months to find out whether it's safe and effective. So, we're talking about later this year, probably about the end of the year before that decision gets made by the FDA. And of course, it's not just one vaccine trial. There's actually about seven of them that are going to be going forward in the course of the next two or three months. And that's good right up putting all of our eggs in one basket. But count on it. By the end of this year, we should have data to say whether one or more of these vaccines turns out to be a winner, in which case we're going to want to start to distribute it as quickly as possible to the people at high risk."
Q: Who gets the vaccine first?
Collins: "Well, we're doing something it's never been done before, which is actually manufacturing millions, tens of millions, of doses of each of these vaccines even before we know if they work because we don't want to have a long gap there waiting for the manufacturing to happen.
"But still, we won't have enough for every American at the end of this year. So there will have to be priorities. Certainly, people who are at high risk are going to be at the top of that list. People with chronic illnesses, the elderly ... African-Americans, Latinos seem to be hit particularly hard with this disease. All of those considerations will need to be made."
Q: How many doses does each person have to get and how long will it take to vaccinate everybody?
Collins: "Well, the vaccine trial that's going on right now is a two-dose regimen. You get one injection on day one and another on Day 28.
"Kind of like a booster because, you know, that's going to give a better immune response. To vaccinate everybody in America in 2021 is going to take a while. But we do have a plan about how to scale up the number of doses necessary to achieve that. But everybody needs to recognize that will take several months and it will have to be done so that the highest risk people get first in line."
Q: How long before we know if it's providing herd immunity?
Collins:"Herd immunity generally requires something around 70 or 80 percent of the population to be immune to the disease. So you'd have to immunize that proportion of a particular community in order for that to kick in. Herd immunity, of course, gets to the point where the virus doesn't have enough vulnerable people around to propagate itself, and then it kind of fades away. We're a long way from that right now. By late spring, we might get.
Q: When kids should go back to school?
Collins: "I think this has to be considering the community circumstances. If you're in a community where the virus is almost not apparent at all and people are ready to go back to school, we know it's good for kids to be at school.
"I think Houston needs to be really thoughtful about whether this is a safe thing to do right now. We do know that kids can get infected. We certainly know their teachers can. So every school district has to look at the evidence and try to decide whether the benefits are worth the risk if the virus is actively spreading. It may not be the time to bring everybody back."
The director of the Wellcome Trust, Sir Jeremy Farrar, has said he believes a vaccine against coronavirus will be available in 2020 and 2021.
Speaking to Hardtalk's Stephen Sackur he said there had been huge progress in vaccinology over the last 10 years.
"In the last seven months since I have been involved, the progress is absolutely staggering and there are now first generation vaccines, theres probably five or six of them from the US, from Europe, from China, from Russia that are becoming available," Sir Jeremy said.
He also warned that the first generation vaccines would not solve everything and diagnostics, treatment and behavioural changes were also important.
Watch the full interview on Wednesday 5 August 2020 on BBC World News or watch again on BBC iPlayer (UK only)
Most ongoing vaccine development efforts against the novel coronavirus use the spike protein on the surface of SARS-CoV-2 in the hopes of inducing neutralizing antibodies that can directly block the virus from infecting healthy cells. But there could be one major caveat to that approach: The antibody response to the virus, mediated by B cells of the immune system, appears to wane quickly.
Thats why a research team led by immuno-oncology biotech TScan Therapeutics turned to another key component of the immune responseT cellsin the hopes of informing the future development of vaccines, treatments and diagnostics.
By studying memory CD8+ T cells from patients who recovered from COVID-19, the team pinpointed the dominant targets of T cells during the natural cellular response. The majority of the targets they found resided outside of the spike protein, according to data published on journal preprint site medRxiv.
Several companies have reported encouraging early-phase clinical data from their vaccine trials, reporting that the candidates induced neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 at levels comparable to or above those of recovered COVID-19 patients. However, it remains unclear whether these antibodies can protect people from an infection or how long the protection, if any, will last.
RELATED:Pfizer reports strong T-cell response to COVID-19 vaccine
Previous studies of two other coronavirusesSARS and MERSshowed that the increases in antibodies could drop quickly to almost undetectable concentrations in recovered patients, whereas memory CD8+ T cells persisted for years. These T cells are able to recognize specific antigens and can launch an immediate immune attack upon re-encountering a pathogen.
A recent non-peer-reviewed paper by researchers at Kings College Londonreported a rapid decline in neutralizing antibody titers in most COVID-19 patients within three months after COVID-19 symptom onset.
Such findings suggest that T cells might play a more important role in long-term immunity against the novel coronavirus, the TScan-led team figured. So the researchers used a genomewide screening technology to look for sites in SARS-CoV-2 that are recognized by the memory CD8+ T cells of convalescent patients. TScan has been utilizing the same platform to identify new antigens in cancer for the design of T-cell receptor cell therapies. It recently inked a $30 million upfront deal with Novartis to work on such therapies for solid tumors.
The team focused on six most prevalent human leukocyte antigen (HLA) types. HLA regulates the cell surface molecules that present antigenic proteins to the receptors on T cells.
RELATED:Moderna's COVID-19 jab spurs 'robust' immune response in first published data
For each HLA type, the COVID-19 patients' T cells largely recognized the same three- to eight-most targeted sites, called immunodominant epitopes, on the virus, the researchers found. Strikingly, of the 29 epitopes the researchers identified, only three resided in the spike protein, which is the target of most vaccines currently in development.
Whats more, these immunodominant targets were mostly absent in four commonly circulating coronaviruses, indicating that prior infection with these less serious coronaviruses might notprovide T-cell-based immunity to SARS-CoV-2, the researchers wrote in the study.
Identifying the most critical T-cell targets could form the basis of a second-generation vaccine, potentially an important follow-on approach to the spike protein vaccines that are currently being developed, TScans chief scientific officer, Gavin MacBeath, said in a statement. The discoveries may also guide the development of novel therapeutic agents and T-cell-based diagnostic tests to determine immunity, the company said.
A COVID-19 vaccine this year? It's a long shot, but it's possible. Memphis Business Journal
Canada's Strategic Innovation Fund has awarded up to C$56M to VBI Vaccines (NASDAQ:VBIV) to support the development of its COVID-19 vaccine program VBI-2900 through Phase 2.
The company is currently collaborating with the National Research Council of Canada on preclinical studies aimed at selecting the best candidate for clinical trials, expected to start by year-end.
Shares up11%on average volume.
Previous infections with common cold viruses can train the immune system to recognize SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, according to a new study.
The study, published Aug. 4 in the journal Science, found that immune cells known as T cells that recognize common cold coronaviruses also recognize specific sites on SARS-CoV-2 including parts of the infamous "spike" protein it uses to bind to and invade human cells.
This existing immune system "memory" may explain why some people have milder COVID-19 infections compared with others; however, the authors stress that this hypothesis is "highly speculative" and requires more research to confirm. That's because it's unknown exactly how big a role T cells play in fighting COVID-19 T cells are just one part of a complex menagerie of molecules and cells that makes up our immune system.
"We have now proven that, in some people, preexisting T-cell memory against common cold coronaviruses can cross-recognize SARS-CoV-2, down to the exact molecular structures," study co-lead author Daniela Weiskopf, assistant professor at La Jolla Institute for Immunology in La Jolla, California, said in a statement.
It's possible that this "immune reactivity may translate to different degrees of protection" against COVID-19, study co-lead author Alessandro Sette, a professor at La Jolla Institute for Immunology, said in the statement. "Having a strong T-cell response, or a better T-cell response may give you the opportunity to mount a much quicker and stronger response."
Related: COVID-19 antibodies may fade, but vaccine hopes have not
Previous studies have shown that upwards of 50% of people never exposed to COVID-19 have T cells that recognize SARS-CoV-2. This ability has been seen in people around the world, in the Netherlands, Germany, the United Kingdom and Singapore. Scientists hypothesized that this existing immunity could be due to previous infections with other coronaviruses, specifically those that cause common cold infections.
In the new study, the researchers analyzed blood samples collected from people between 2015 and 2018, well before COVID-19 first emerged in Wuhan, China.
These blood samples contained T cells that reacted to more than 100 specific sites on SARS-CoV-2. The researchers showed that these T cells also reacted to similar sites on four different coronaviruses that cause common cold infections.
"This study provides very strong direct molecular evidence that memory T cells can 'see' sequences that are very similar between common cold coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2," Sette said.
In addition to binding to the spike protein, the T cells also recognized other viral proteins beyond the spike.
Currently, most COVID-19 vaccine candidates target the spike protein, but the new findings suggest that including other proteins in a vaccine, besides the spike, might harness this T cell cross reactivity and potentially enhance the vaccine's potency, the researchers said, although much more research would be needed to show this.
The authors note that their findings of cross-reactivity with T cells are different from what has been seen with neutralizing antibodies another weapon of the immune system that blocks a pathogen from infecting cells. Neutralizing antibodies against common cold viruses are specific to those viruses and don't show cross-reactivity with SARS-CoV-2, according to previous studies, the authors said.
Originally published on Live Science.
