Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

Here's what we know about where possible coronavirus treatments, vaccines and antibody tests stand.

Antibody tests are often cited as key to returning to normal, and they would verify whether a patient had already been infected with the coronavirus and developed antibodies to it. That could mean the patient is immune or protected from being re-infected by the coronavirus, but it's unclear how certain that is.

There are currently four antibody tests approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, meaning the agency has reviewed data showing those tests work. The FDA approved one of these tests Thursday and two of them Wednesday.

In a controversial move, the FDA is allowing other companies to sell their tests without supply data that show they work.

After receiving complaints, the National Cancer Institute, a part of the National Institute of Health, is working to validate some antibody tests in hopes of getting better quality tests on the market.

Possible treatments

Right now there is no specific treatment for Covid-19. And while doctors are trying out various drugs and procedures, it's still not known if they'll work.

You've likely heard about hydroxychloroquine, a drug that's already approved and used to treat malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

President Donald Trump has often touted hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment, calling it a "game changer."

Results from most clinical trials are not expected until June or July.

Scientists are also looking at remdesivir, an experimental drug designed to treat Ebola. Several trials are underway in the US and worldwide.

Another possible treatment is convalescent plasma, which involves injecting blood products that contain antibodies from recovered Covid-19 patients into people who are still infected.

The hope is that the antibodies from the patients who've successfully recovered from Covid-19 will help the patients who are currently fighting off the disease.

It's an old concept, and it hasn't always been successful -- it was tried with Ebola patients, but it didn't work -- but several trials are underway in New York and Orange County, California.

Vaccines

Vaccines are seen as the holy grail. If the US population can be successfully vaccinated for the coronavirus, that would make it easier for the country to reopen.

Kizzmekia Corbett, NIH's lead scientist for coronavirus vaccine research, told CNN that a vaccine could be ready in the fall for "emergency use."

"That would be for healthcare workers and people who might be in constant contact and risk of being exposed over and over," she said. "And then for the general population our target goal is for next spring," she added, assuming all goes well.

Other researchers are skeptical, saying the type of vaccine she's referring to has not been successful in humans.

Several companies are testing vaccines, but it will take months -- or more likely at least a year -- to complete those trials.

The US biotech firm Moderna has begun enrolling patients with Kaiser Permanente and Emory University.

Johnson & Johnson, which plans to start human testing by September with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals is testing its first human subjects this week, while Novovax plans to start human testing in mid-May.

Pfizer is also working on a vaccine with BioNTech.

CanSino Biological Inc. and the Beijing Institute of Biotechnology have a vaccine in clinical evaluation.

But again, researchers are skeptical, saying there are likely other reasons for reports of low coronavirus rates in those countries.

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What we know about the state of coronavirus treatments, vaccines and antibody tests - CNN

Some supporters of President Donald Trump have latched onto a new villain to attack during the COVID-19 pandemic: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.

AsThe Daily Beast'sWill Sommer reports, Trump-loving social media personalities Diamond & Silk this week uncorked a bizarre conspiratorial rant about Gates working to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus to use unsuspecting Americans as "guinea pigs" in a plan to "rule the world with vaccines."

And Diamond & Silk are far from their alone in their suspicions about Gates Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson said he believes that Gates is going to use the vaccine to "track" people, while Trump ally and convicted felon Roger Stone has flat-out said that Gates will use the vaccine to "microchip" people.

Brooke Binkowski, the managing editor of fact-checking site Truth or Fiction, tells Sommer that Bill Gates is rapidly becoming the right's biggest bogeyman after financier George Soros.

"These are all just recirculated, warmed-over storiesthey're just switching the names around," she said. "George Soros was the bogeyman, now it's Bill Gates."

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Binkowski also fears that these conspiracy theories will make millions of Americans reluctant to take a COVID-19 vaccine when one is eventually developed, which will further put people's lives in danger.

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Diamond & Silk claim Bill Gates work on coronavirus vaccine is part of plot to rule the world" - Salon

Provided by Refinery29

As soon as it became clear how quickly coronavirus was spreading across the world, and how deadly it was, the race for the vaccine was on. As of now, there are as many as 115 vaccine programs in the works, reports the journal Science Translational Medicine. One of the first in the world to be tested on humans was created by Moderna, Inc, a biotech company in Massachusetts. One month ago, that vaccine was given to the first set of human subjects as part of a safety trial.

The first person to receive the Moderna coronavirus vaccine was Jennifer Haller of Seattle; she spoke to Refinery29 the day after getting the shot. Around a month later, on April 14, she received the second and final dose. We took the opportunity to check in with her. She answered our questions about what symptoms she experienced as a result of the vaccine, and how shes handling all the attention she received after news of her participation in the Moderna trial went public.

This interview has been condensed for clarity and length.

Refinery29: What has the last month been like?

Jennifer Haller: As far as side effects from the vaccine, Ive had basically, zero. My arm was sore the day after the first shot, and my arm is sore again today after getting the second shot. But Ive experienced no other side effects, which has been great. Ive just been living my life as normal as possible, since Im under the same restrictions as everybody else no special restrictions from participating in the trial.

Did you have to go in for any blood tests or anything in the interim between these two vaccines?

Yes. After the first one, I went back one week later for a blood draw. That one was to just check my overall health and make sure that I was doing well. Two weeks after the first vaccination, I went in for another blood draw. That one was to check my overall health as well, but also to check for any antibodies that may have been produced. [Antibodies would indicate an immune response to the vaccine, which would be a positive sign.]

As of now, even the study doctors dont know what the results of the antibody production was, so neither do I. My understanding is similar, that this first phase is just to determine safety. And in the second phases theyll focus more on efficacy. I dont believe I will know any results until they are published publicly.

I got the second dose of the vaccine yesterday, and Ill go through a repeat of four weeks ago: I keep a log for the next eight days of my temperature and any symptoms. There will be a phone call today and tomorrow to just do a check in, get some vitals from me over the phone. In a week, Ill go back for a blood draw, and in two weeks, Ill go back for a second blood draw.

Then from there, over the next 12 months Ill have three more visits for blood draws.

But Im done there are no more doses of the vaccine.

Has being part of the trial affected your day-to-day at all? Does it feel different knowing that youve taken part in this trial or not really?

No, I dont presume any kind of inoculation or anything from the trial. Im conducting myself the same as if I wasnt in the trial, just taking the same precautions as everyone else.

Im based in New York City, where the vibe is still pretty anxious. What is it like in your area, in Seattle? Are you still pretty locked down?

Yes. In the last week or so, weve seen that our state has generally done a good job on the stay-at-home mandate. We leveled off on new cases. We dismantled our field hospital last week, and sent it back to the federal government for them to redeploy and returned a bunch of ventilators.

So, our state is feeling cautiously optimistic about the success of the stay-at-home order. But were certainly not out of the woods. I dont think were near lifting the stay-at-home order. Were feeling pretty lucky, especially seeing whats happening in areas of our country that didnt take it as serious.

After the first time we spoke, I noticed people reacted almost with a sense of relief to be hearing something positive. And not just that they were testing a vaccine, but that you and the other participants in the trial had volunteered and were taking this step to help the greater community. What was it like to be faced with that kind of overwhelmingly positive reaction when the news of you being part of the vaccine trial began getting around?

Yeah, I think a big piece of me wanting to do this is because I have a lot of privilege: I have a secure job, friends and family nearby, plenty in savings. Being part of a trial like this is something that a lot of people cant do because theyre under so many more stressors, and have so many more immediate concerns. So it was important to me to find something to do that others necessarily couldnt. By that I mean to use my privilege to do something a little more risky than what others could do.

And all the praise was difficult at first I did receive a ton of love and thanks and prayers from thousands of people on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and all of that. It was very overwhelming and I didnt know what to do with that. It didnt feel right to me to have all this praise because Im just one of many that are participating in a vaccine trial. Im just one small piece of this effort.

So I didnt know what to do with all that. And I talked to a trusted advisor, a spiritual leader, that Ive turned to in the past. She said, If somebody criticizes you or is mean to you, its because theyre projecting or they have something else going on in their life. So you dont take that personally. And she helped me understand that this is just the flip side of that. That praise is also not to be taken personally, and its not about me. Its about people looking for hope and some kind of positive future. And so that really helped me release and pass on the positive messages I was receiving.

And I wanted to pass it on to those who were actually putting their lives on the line here. The ones who are working to feed their family and keep their housing.People that are working minimum wage jobs, working on the farms or driving trucks or cleaning hospitals all those who are now termed essential workers. Those are the real people that are making sacrifices and going through some scary times.

Have there been any stories or news youve heard thats touched you in the same way that people were being touched by your story? Has there been anything youve heard that youve just been like, Wow, I cant believe someones doing that or people are doing that?

I dont have specific stories, but I am thinking a lot about undocumented workers right now. My birthday was just last week and for the past couple of years Ive done a fundraiser on Facebook. This year I picked a non-profit to support undocumented workers. Thats a group that has completely fallen through the cracks and received zero help from the federal government, certainly.

They have the hardest jobs in our country, I believe, and critical jobs. And so that was something that was important to me to support and to recognize.

I dont know how to say it, but I know my family and my neighbors are going to look back on this time and be like, Wow, wasnt that magical? We got to slow down. We got to spend some quality time with our family. We got to connect. And Im really kind of embarrassed by that, because half of our country, even prior to this crisis, was living paycheck to paycheck.

So I hope, when Im doing interviews, when people are hearing my story, what I really hope is that it inspires them to think beyond themselves. Its natural, when were in crisis, to go inward to protect ourselves and to protect our family. But I really hope that this can inspire people to step outside of that and to think bigger. And I hope, certainly more broadly, that this is a wake-up call for our country to recognize the inequality that has always been there and to take some important steps to meet everybodys basic human needs: universal healthcare, paid sick time, a livable minimum wage, I could go on

COVID-19 has been declared a global pandemic. Go to the CDC website for the latest information on symptoms, prevention, and other resources.

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She tested a coronavirus vaccine a month ago. Here's what the last 4 weeks have been like. - msnNOW

"So I hope, when I'm doing interviews, when people are hearing my story, what I really hope is that it inspires them to think beyond themselves. Its natural, when we're in crisis, to go inward to protect ourselves and to protect our family. But I really hope that this can inspire people to step outside of that and to think bigger. And I hope, certainly more broadly, that this is a wake-up call for our country to recognize the inequality that has always been there and to take some important steps to meet everybody's basic human needs: universal healthcare, paid sick time, a livable minimum wage, I could go on"

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I Tested The Coronavirus Vaccine A Month Ago. Heres What The Last Four Weeks Have Been Like - Refinery29

Vaccine with incomplete immunity could offer faster solution to pandemic  Better Life

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Vaccine with incomplete immunity could offer faster solution to pandemic - Better Life

When will we have a Covid-19 vaccine? Public-facing scientists such as the UKs chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, and his US counterpart, Anthony Fauci, keep repeating that it wont be before 12 to 18 months. But other voices including some of those in the race to create a vaccine themselves have suggested that it could be as early as June. Who is right?

The former, probably, but its complicated because this pandemic is forcing change at almost every step in the process by which a new vaccine arrives at a needle near us.

It really depends on what you mean by having a vaccine, says Marian Wentworth, president and CEO of Management Sciences for Health, a Massachusetts-based global not-for-profit organisation that seeks to build resilient health systems, and a long-time observer of vaccine development. If you mean one that can be used in a mass vaccination campaign, allowing us all to get on with our lives, then 12 to 18 months is probably right.

But in terms of an experimental vaccine that is deemed safe and effective enough to be rolled out in a more limited way to high-risk groups such as health workers, say that could be ready within weeks or months, under emergency rules developed by drug regulatory agencies and the World Health Organization in the context of the recent Ebola epidemics in Africa.

When the University of Oxfords Adrian Hill told the Guardian that his groups Covid-19 vaccine candidate could be ready by the summer, it was this kind of readiness to which he was probably referring. The group, led by Sarah Gilbert, has since stated that a vaccine shown to be effective in phase-3 clinical trials that could be manufactured in large quantities wont be ready before the autumn even in a best-case scenario. And that scenario is highly ambitious and subject to change.

Normally, a vaccine is developed in the lab before being tested on animals. If it proves safe and generates a promising immune response in this pre-clinical phase, it enters human or clinical trials. These are divided into three phases, each of which takes longer and involves more people than the previous one. Phase 1 establishes the vaccines safety in a small group of healthy individuals, with the goal of ruling out debilitating side effects. Phases 2 and 3 test efficacy, and in an outbreak like the present one they are conducted in places where the disease is prevalent. In parallel with these later phases, production capacity for the candidate vaccine is gradually built up, so that factories are capable of producing it on a large scale if and when regulatory agencies judge that it should be licensed.

In an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine on 30 March, representatives of the Oslo-based not-for-profit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (Cepi), which is helping to finance and coordinate Covid-19 vaccine development, laid out an accelerated version of this process that they believe is more suited to a pandemic. This pandemic paradigm implements certain steps in parallel, such as animal and phase-1 clinical testing. It also involves scaling up production capacity before sufficient safety and efficacy data are available a financially risky step, given that that may never materialise, and one that requires governments and not-for-profit organisations such as Cepi to share that extra financial risk with pharmaceutical companies if they want them to engage. Mass production is critical in a pandemic, when hundreds of millions if not billions of doses are needed and many countries are now scrambling to build new vaccine production facilities.

People now appreciate that the lengthy process of conventional licensing of vaccines is not going to be helpful in the context of an epidemic, says Beate Kampmann, who heads the vaccine centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Bringing a new vaccine to the clinic has taken 10 to 20 years in the past

Prudently, Cepi did not attach a timeline to its accelerated paradigm, but the 12- to 18-month estimate already takes it into account. Bringing a new vaccine to the clinic has taken 10 to 20 years in the past. Nevertheless, the accelerated paradigm is being implemented now. A Boston-based biotech firm, Moderna, saw its experimental Covid-19 vaccine enter human trials on 16 March, just 10 weeks after the first genetic sequences of Sars-CoV-2 the virus that causes the disease were released. Others will follow soon.

Were getting to candidates much more quickly, says Kampmann, who puts this progress down to advances made in the fight against Ebola. The step-up in technology that we have seen in the last five years has really made a difference.

There are many hurdles ahead, though. Most of the 70-odd Covid-19 vaccine candidates being developed and tested will not make it to the licensing stage, and those that have been fastest out of the blocks may still encounter problems later on. Modernas innovative technology allowed it to generate a candidate quickly, but no vaccine using this platform has been licensed to date.

At the Pasteur Institute in Paris, on the other hand, a Covid-19 vaccine candidate is still in pre-clinical development, but because it piggybacks on established technology a licensed measles vaccine the testing and licensing processes will go faster. And this kind of vaccine can already be produced in large quantities.

While there can be no shortcuts to establishing safety and efficacy, proposals have been put forward for how these experimental vaccines might be tested more rapidly without sacrificing scientific rigour. In February, for example, the WHO published a draft protocol for phase 2 and 3 trials that would test a number of candidates simultaneously, in multi-country trials according to standardised criteria.

Another proposal is to conduct controlled human challenge trials, in which healthy volunteers are given a candidate vaccine and then infected with Sars-CoV-2. These are ethically questionable, especially before scientists understand why young and otherwise healthy people are ending up on ventilators. A similar approach, being implemented by the London-based clinical research group Hvivo, invites volunteers to be infected with a milder coronavirus but how applicable its findings will be to Sars-CoV-2 is not clear.

If our own body cant prevent us from getting it again, that would be one pretty damning signal

There are still many unknowns with respect to Covid-19, including for how long any vaccine will provide protection. A strong indication of this will be whether people who have recovered from the disease can catch it again. There have been anecdotal reports of re-infection, but the phenomenon is not well understood. If our own body cant prevent us from getting it again, that would be one pretty damning signal, says Wentworth.

Once a vaccine is licensed, there will still be political obstacles to getting it to where its needed, because each country or public health jurisdiction has to make its own decision to roll it out. There will also be issues of prioritisation who should get it first, if supplies are limited which authorities are discussing now.

A vaccine that is approved a year from now may arrive after the end of the current pandemic, but if so it wont be wasted first because Covid-19 may recur seasonally, and second because the vaccine could itself be repurposed in the event of an outbreak of a different coronavirus. That will be no consolation to victims of this pandemic, or their relatives, but it does mean that humanity will be better protected in future. As Wentworth says: That learning, we wont unlearn.

Due to the unprecedented and ongoing nature of the coronavirus outbreak, this article is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects the current situation as best as possible. Any significant corrections made to this or previous versions of the article will continue to be footnoted in line with Guardian editorial policy.

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Coronavirus vaccine: when will we have one? - The Guardian

Three potential coronavirus vaccines are making fast progress in early-stage testing in volunteers in China and the U.S., but its still a long road to prove if theyll really work against COVID-19.

CanSino Biologics of China has begun the second phase of testing its vaccine candidate, the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology said Tuesday.

In the U.S., a shot made by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. isnt far behind. The first person to receive that experimental vaccine last month returned to a Seattle clinic Tuesday for a second dose.

NIH infectious disease chief Dr. Anthony Fauci said there are no red flags so far and he hoped the next, larger phase of testing could begin around June.

A third candidate, from Inovio Pharmaceuticals, began giving experimental shots for first-step safety testing last week in the U.S. and hopes to expand its studies to China.

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Initial tests in a clinical trial focus on safety, and researchers in both countries are trying out different doses of different types of shots.

But moving into the second phase is a critical step that allows vaccines to be tested in many more people to look for signs that they protect against infection.

Last week, CanSino filed a report showing it aimed to enroll 500 people in its phase 2 study, comparing two doses of the vaccine to placebo shots. As of Monday, 273 of the volunteers had been injected, state media said.

Looking ahead, Fauci said if the new coronavirus continues to circulate widely enough over the summer and fall, it might be possible to finish larger studies slightly sooner than the 12 to 18 months hed originally predicted maybe toward mid to late winter of next season.

Please let me say this caveat: That is assuming that its effective. See, thats the big if, Fauci stressed. Its got to be effective and its got to be safe.

During a news conference in China, authorities also cautioned that the studies must be done properly.

Although we are in an emergency, we cannot lower the standards of safety and effectiveness in the reviews of vaccines, said Wang Junzhi, a Chinese biopharmaceutical expert. The public is paying huge attention.

The World Health Organization this week counted more than five dozen other vaccine candidates in earlier stages of development being pursued around the world. Many research groups are teaming up to speed the work. On Tuesday, vaccine giants Sanofi and GSK announced that they had became the latest to partner on a candidate.

The WHOs list includes a wide variety of ways to make vaccines, so if one approach doesnt pan out, perhaps another one will.

CanSinos vaccine is based on a genetically engineered shot it created to guard against Ebola. The leading U.S. candidates use a different approach, made from copies of a piece of the coronavirus genetic code.

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Three potential coronavirus vaccines moving ahead - Los Angeles Times

Johnson & Johnson says it aims to have more than half a billion coronavirus vaccines ready early next year.

The pharmaceutical giant will have 600 million to 800 million vaccines available in early 2021, when it expects the US government to approve the drug it plans to start testing in humans this September, chief financial officer Joe Wolk said Tuesday.

The timeline still is pretty certain, Wolk told Yahoo Finance in an interview. Were manufacturing at risk to ensure that should the clinical development and the trials be successful, we are in a position to kind of flip the switch and ready to go to create great access across the globe.

The company aims to ramp up production to 1 billion doses annually by the end of next year, Wolk said in the interview. J&J and the federal Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority announced a $1 billion investment last month to help achieve that goal.

J&J plans to set up a new manufacturing facility in the US to supplement the companys plant in the Netherlands that can produce up to 300 million doses. The stateside factory will be up and running later this year or early next year, Wolk told Yahoo.

With Post wires

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Johnson & Johnson will have 600-800 million coronavirus vaccines by 2021 - New York Post

Not long after the COVID-19 pandemic began, hopes for a vaccine were raised. Even US president, Donald Trump, a former vaccine skeptic, demanded a coronavirus vaccine, saying: Do me a favor, speed it up, speed it up.

So where does that leave the anti-vaxxers those who are critical or oppose vaccination. Will they now be quiet in the face of a real-life reminder of a time before vaccines controlled many diseases?

During a pandemic, the position of those who oppose vaccination is often voiced, even if a vaccine is not yet available.

Some celebrities and high-profile personalities have also spoken out about their unwillingness to have a vaccine. The British rapper MIA, for example, attracted controversy for her tweet: If I have to choose the vaccine or chip Im gonna choose death. YALA.

MIA experienced a significant backlash from many followers who disagreed with her views. Indeed, in general, the heightened stakes of a very present disease threat may lead to a stronger countering by those who are in support of vaccination.

Read: [Bill Gates to fund 7 coronavirus vaccines for quicker results, likely wasting billions]

While the anti-vax constituency was seen as politically attractive in pre-coronavirus times, today, vocal vaccine critics looking for votes may find it harder. As a Vermont governor candidate has found, his stance against government-mandated vaccination has been questioned by opponents.

Anti-vaxxers are a target right now for those looking for enemies in the crisis. While tempting, it is important not to fuel tensions and polarization. The worries that anti-vaxxers might have of government encroachment into private lives (through surveillance and possible enforcement of vaccines) should be addressed, as should the spread of misinformation and influencers offering alternative natural cures that are useless or even harmful.

It is difficult to assess, at this stage, what the publics reaction to a coronavirus vaccine might be. Looking at vaccines that were rolled out in response to other disease outbreaks, you will find different reactions. For example, there was a high demand for the polio vaccine in the 1950s because the risk was very present. But there were concerns over a new vaccine being rushed or not tested well during 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

A vaccine for COVID-19 will have to go through all the same safety and effectiveness tests as any other vaccine that is introduced. But negative comments in the media about the speed and rigor of vaccine trials is worrying. As are references to trial participants as guinea pigs.

Even more worrying is the spread of misinformation and disinformation, which can stem from skepticism about the motivations of those who have developed a new vaccine and may lead to questions about how safe and useful it is. This sort of thing could derail a vaccination campaign, as has happened in the past. For example, in 2017, a rumor that vaccination would make children impotent hampered the Indian governments vaccination campaign for new measles and rubella vaccines being rolled out in five states.

To address this risk, health authorities and governments need to quickly react to information that is false or misleading. Social media platforms are already aware of their role against COVID-19 fake news and met with government leaders early on in the crisis.

Where there are very limited control and oversight is with private messaging, such as WhatsApp, email, and text messages. Even though WhatsApp recently announced it will limit frequent forwards,by restricting the times a message can be forwarded by five, we still need to rely on the public to be aware of what sources to trust and also bring attention to fake news.

With the many concerns about opposition to vaccination, what should not be neglected are the routine immunization programs that protect people against vaccine-preventable diseases. While it may be harder to routinely vaccinate people if health resources are directed elsewhere, and there is difficulty or reluctance to go to the doctor or other places where vaccination takes place (such as schools, due to closure), making the best use of the vaccines already available is crucial to avoid other disease outbreaks on top of COVID-19.

This article is republished from The ConversationbySamantha Vanderslott, Postdoctoral Researcher in Social Sciences, University of Oxfordunder a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Will a coronavirus vaccine change the minds of anti-vaxxers? - The Next Web

SAN DIEGO As the race to find a vaccine for the coronavirus ramps up, so does the competition. San Diego based Sorrento Therapeutics is working to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus as well as antibody therapy and testing.

Theres not many companies in the world that can do what were doing, put them all together, said Chairman and CEO of Sorrento Therapeutics, Henry Ji.

From concept, to development, to the vial, Ji says the company plans to be involved every step of the way. Additionally, he says the companys access to labs and testing abilities means results will come expeditiously.

I love the spirit of the employees, said San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer who stopped in for a visit Wednesday.

They are working literally 24/7 and they are proud of their work. They know the work they are doing in this building is going to save lives. So, it is my honor, my privilege to come in and say great job.

Ji says theyre currently working on a handful of vaccines and due to relaxed FDA regulations, having one of them ready for use by the end of the year, is within the realm of possibility.

They are also working on creating a test to detect antibodies, an indicator someone may have already been exposed to the coronavirus and recovered.

Equally important is antibody therapies. Ji said they are working on the therapeutic and neutralizing variety. The neutralizing version could be especially helpful for people in the health care industry.

Every two weeks you inject the antibody, Ji explains. Nurses, doctors, you want to neutralize the antibody and inject them before they enter the hospital so they are protected from the virus.

Sorrento Therapeutics isnt the first company to enter the race for therapies and vaccines. Dozens of others around the world have also chased the goal. Ji says even if others beat them to the finish line, the target may end up shifting if the virus mutates.

The guys that are doing it first may get it wrong, and were trying to get it right.

The company says they are also waiting on FDA approval for something that could serve as a blocker for lung inflammation to people who already have coronavirus and patients in hospitals on ventilators.

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Local company working on coronavirus vaccine, antibody test and therapy - fox5sandiego.com