COVID-19: Vaccine Updates

With confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide surpassing 9 million and continuing to grow, scientists are pushing forward with efforts to develop vaccines and treatments to slow the pandemic and lessen the disease’s damage.

Vaccines around the world

COVAXIN is being developed by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), National Institute of Virology, Pune, and Bharat Biotech. So far, ICMR has identified 12 sites for human trials for the vaccine. COVAXIN will be tested on 375 people for the first phase and then 750 in the later stages. Another potential coronavirus covid19 vaccine candidate, which is being produced by Zydus Cadila, has received approval for Phase I/Phase II trials.

Around the world, 125 potential COVID19 vaccines are at the preclinical phase, 15 coronavirus vaccines are at Phase 1, 10 are at Phase 2, 4 are at Phase 3. A vaccine produced by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca has so far shown positive results. Dr Anthony Fauci has also revealed that a vaccine being developed by US-based Moderna has shown promising results.

Canada-based Medicago has announced a Phase I trial for its vaccine, Maryland-based Novavax has stated that it would get the US government funding. Japan company AnGes has begun Phase I/II trials.

A Chinese vaccine candidate for coronavirus has moved into Phase II human trials. The potential vaccine is being developed by China’s Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products, Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical, and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. However, the Chinese firm did not provide details of the trial design or results of Phase I test of the experimental vaccine. A vaccine by CanSino Biologics in China was approved for military use. Chinese company Sinovac Biotech has moved into Phase III trials. _^source

The table below lists major COVID-19 vaccine candidates currently in pre-clinical stages of development and research.

Candidate	Sponsor	Institution	Funding
AAVCOVID	Massachusetts Eye and Ear; Massachusetts General Hospital; University of Pennsylvania		Wyc Grousbeck; Emilia Fazzalari
Ad26.COV2-S	Johnson & Johnson	Johnson & Johnson	Operation Warp Speed; Johnson & Johnson; BARDA
AdCOVID	Altimmune	University of Alabama at Birmingham	Altimmune
Adenovirus-based vaccine	ImmunityBio; NantKwest		
bacTRL-Spike	Symvivo	Symvivo Corporation	Symvivo Corporation
Covaxin	Bharat Biotech; National Institute of Virology		
DNA-based vaccine	Takis Biotech	Takis Biotech	Takis Biotech
HaloVax	Voltron Therapeutics, Inc.; Hoth Therapeutics, Inc.	MGH Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center	
Ii-Key peptide COVID-19 vaccine	Generex Biotechnology	Generex	Generex
LUNAR-COV19	Arcturus,Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical School	Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore	Arcturus
Measles vector vaccine	University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Vaccine Research	University of Pittsburgh; Themis Biosciences; Institut Pasteur	Merck
Molecular clamp vaccine	CSL; The University of Queensland		CEPI; CSL
NVX-CoV2373	Novavax	Novavax	Novavax, CEPI, Department of Defense ($60 million)
PittCoVacc	UPMC/University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine	University of Pittsburgh	CEPI
Plant-based COVID-19 vaccine; recombinant coronavirus virus-like particles (CoVLP) vaccine candidates	Medicago; GSK; Dynavax	Medicago	Medicago
Protein subunit vaccine	University of Saskatchewan Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre	University of Saskatchewan Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization-International Vaccine Centre	
Recombinant vaccine	Vaxart	Vaxart	
Recombinant vaccine	Sanofi, Translate Bio		BARDA
Recombinant vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) vaccine	Merck; IAVI		BARDA
Self-amplifying RNA vaccine	Imperial College London	Imperial College London	UK Secretary of State for Health; UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
T-COVIDTM	Altimmune		Altimmune