How soon can the world breathe a sigh of relief from COVID-19?
Anumber of pharmaceutical companies have begun unveiling medical advances in fight against coronavirus (Covid-19) after almost a year of its emergence, including Pfizer Inc. and Biontech SE, who appear to be at the forefront with 95 percent vaccine efficiency in the final analysis of clinical trial data and possess the likelihood of completely wiping off the coronavirus.
This is given the fact that Pfizer and Biontech plan to produce 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and 1.3 billion by the end of 2021, with the capacity of totally eradicating the active 16.9 million Covid-19 cases by the end of 2021 even with an additional average of 600,000 new daily cases worldwide according to statistics from Worldometer.
As such, Pfizer and Bion
Tech are getting ready to apply for the first US regulatory authorisation for a coronavirus shot over the next few days, even as the next few weeks are crucial to gaining more insight into how these vaccines and treatment will work.
As at November 24, 2020, despite the 41.26 million recovered persons of the 59.6 million coronavirus cases that have been recorded so far, more than half a million new cases have been reported worldwide with America taking the bulk of about 30 percent at 169,000+ new Covid-19 cases and 1.4 million deaths reported worldwide.
Nearly 44,000 participants of all ethnicities and ages were included in the trials of Pfizer and Biontech with no significant safety concerns so far.
In response to this, Pfizer’s shares have jumped by 27 percent in premarket trading while Biontech’s American depositary receipts have increased by 7.3 percent with stock gains of Stoxx Europe 600 going up by 0.4 percent.
Out of 170 total participants that contracted Covid-19, the Pfizer-biontech data show that eight who received the vaccine took ill, while 162 persons got the placebo. The shots were helpful in preventing severe escalation of the disease as 9 out of 10 severe cases occurred in the placebo group.
For persons above 65 years, the vaccine is said to be over 64 percent effective with intense fatigue affecting just 3.7 percent of volunteers after the second-dose of the two-shot regimen, with vaccine temperature of -70°C or marginally lower or higher by 10°C.
Projections, such as the Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar of the US, are that vaccination campaigns might likely commence in December 2020 or January 2021.
Closely following is Moderna Inc. which appears to be having an edge with a 2-dose vaccine that uses so-called messenger RNA, which seems to be equally effective as seen in its data published earlier this week with 94.5 percent efficiency.
Moderna remains optimistic in its plans to produce between 500 million and 1 billion doses yearly by 2021, with shipment of about 20 million doses this year 2020.
The third vaccine contender is Astrazeneca Plc and the University of Oxford are undergoing accelerated review with expectations that preliminary data from advanced trials should be reported in the coming weeks.
Nonetheless, CSL commenced its manufacturing of vaccine on November 9 2020, having different contracts with Astrazeneca and
the Australian Government to produce up to 30 million doses, with its first dosage to be out by mid-2021
Despite losing ground for two weeks due to a safety concern, Johnson & Johnson are back with possible initial trial results by the beginning of next year and looking to the UnitedHealth Group Inc. to accelerate the recruitment process.
Paul Lefebvre, vice president of strategic initiatives and Covid-19 vaccine supply chain at J&J’S Janssen unit mentioned that the company plans to bring their product at -20°C into the J&J warehouses worldwide, with expected 2-years stability, and stable 3-month temperature of 2°C to 8°C when disbursed to distributors and customers, which is not much colder than an average refrigerator.
Also, J&J has pledged 500 million doses to low-income markets starting in mid-2021.
Novavax Inc. is preparing to launch a large, late-stage US trial before the end of November to test efficiency, and has completed collaborations to supply Australia with 40 million doses by half-year 2021, Canada with 76 million doses, and UK with 60 million doses by Q1 2021, and expected global capacity of over 2 billion doses by mid-2021.
Sanofi and partner GlaxoSmithkline (GSK) plc, two of the world’s biggest vaccine makers, are hoping to start advanced trials of their candidates by year-end and produce 200 million vaccine doses by 2021 to support COVAX and annual supply capacity of 90-360 million doses.