Human trials for coronavirus vaccine set to start next week
Human trials of a potential vaccine for Covid-19 will begin in the UK next week.
Imperial College London’s vaccine team, led by Professor Robin Shattock, have developed an RNA vaccine that delivers genetic instructions to muscle cells to make the “spike” protein on the surface of coronavirus.
The presence of this protein provokes an immune response, offering protection against Covid-19.
The vaccine is now due to enter phase one and two human clinical trials on Monday with 300 people.
A further trial involving 6,000 people is planned for October and if these prove successful, Imperial hopes the vaccine could be distributed in the UK and abroad early next year.
A separate vaccine from experts at Oxford University is undergoing human clinical trials.
Imperial College London has also formed a new social enterprise called Vacequity Global Health (VGH) to develop its vaccine.
Imperial and VGH will waive royalties for the UK and lowincome countries “and charge only modest cost-plus prices to sustain the enterprise’s work, accelerate global distribution and support new research”, the college said in a statement.
“The social enterprise’s mission is to rapidly develop vaccines to prevent SARS-COV-2 (Covid-19) infection and distribute them as widely as possible in the UK and overseas, including to low and middleincome countries,” it said.
Prof Shattock said: “We have spent an intense six months to fast-track our vaccine to the clinic. Now we are ready to combat the virus through our clinical trials.
“We are grateful to the thousands of people helping us advance the vaccine, from donors, investors and the Government to volunteers for our clinical trials.
“These new enterprises are the most effective way for us to deliver Covid-19 vaccines quickly, cheaply and internationally, while preparing for future pandemics.”
Gerald Chan, co-founder of Morningside, a private equity and venture capital investments group that is supporting the move, said: “No medical intervention has saved more lives in human history than vaccines.
“The Imperial vaccine technology is a ground-breaking innovation that is readily scalable.
“This technology has been developed with scientific rigour and a regard for manufacturing scale that is required for any solution to the present pandemic.”