ANOTHER VACCINE EYED
AstraZeneca one shown to be cheaper and easier to store
AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine candidate was shown to be 70% effective, the company announced Monday, and it is cheaper and easier to store than vaccine candidates from Moderna and Pfizer.
“Today marks an important milestone in our fight against the pandemic. This vaccine’s efficacy and safety confirm that it will be highly effective against COVID-19 and will have an immediate impact on this public health emergency,” said AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot in a statement Monday.
The vaccine developed by Oxford University and manufactured by AstraZeneca was 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in one dosing method that required a low dose followed by a high dose.
Another regimen, which was two high doses, yielded a 62% efficacy rate. Overall, with both regimens included, the efficacy averaged out to 70%.
“It continues to be good news, it’s great that we now have three candidate vaccines, each of which are showing substantial protection of study volunteers against COVID-19,” said Dr. Daniel Kuritzkes, chief of infectious diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
He said based on the first regimen, which was 90% effective, one can expect that’s the dosage that will ultimately be used, but that will depend on recommendations from the Food and Drug Administration.
Unlike the Moderna and Pfizer mRNA vaccines, which both recently announced efficacy rates around 95%, the AstraZeneca vaccine uses a chimpanzee viral vector based on a weakened version of a common cold virus.
It’s a more conventional approach, said Kuritzkes, and can’t cause infection. However, he said there are currently no licensed adenovirus vaccines in the U.S.
There were no hospitalizations or severe cases of coronavirus reported in participants receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine, according to the company. There were a total of 131 COVID-19 cases in the interim analysis.
The company said it will now prepare regulatory submission of the data to authorities around the world and seek an Emergency
Use Listing from the World Health Organization to make the vaccine availap able in low-income countries.
The vaccine is cheaper to make and can be stored at normal refrigerated conditions for at least six months. The other vaccine candidates reportedly would need to be stored at much colder temperatures.
“Because the vaccine can be stored at fridge temperatures, it can be distributed around the world using the normal immunization distribution system. And so our goal … to make sure that we have a vaccine that was accessible everywhere, I think we’ve actually managed to do that,” said Dr. Andrew Pollard, chief investigator for the trial.
AstraZeneca has reached agreements with governments that put its cost at about $2.50 a dose. Pfizer’s vaccine costs about $20, while Moderna’s is $15 to $25.
The results reported Monday come from trials in the U.K. and Brazil that involved 23,000 people. Of those, 11,636 people received the vaccine — while the rest got a placebo.