Here are 3 companies which are showing great potential towards solving COVID-19 with coronavirus vaccine development. USA & Japan have been working very hard towards an effective vaccine.
The COVID-19 pandemic is entering its 5th month in 2020 and it has greatly impacted the economies of many countries. Among the many countries grappling with the impact, we have seen various industries suffer and almost throwing in the towel.
Hong Kong, New Zealand and Taiwan are among the countries who have performed well during the pandemic.
Vietnam has also been one of the unexpected countries to have successfully overcome the pandemic.
Singapore on the other hand is having mixed assessments, having entered Circuit Breaker for 40 days and are still seeing community cases as the island nation looks to reopen their economy with a record-breaking $100 billion spent to sustain the economy.
Takara Bio, Inc
Japanese biotech company, Takara Bio, Inc first reported vaccine development in April 2020 with ready facilities for mass production. Takara Bio, Inc partnered with bio company AnGes and Osaka University to develop the DNA COVID-19 vaccine. It will start clinical trials in the summer.
The COVID-19 vaccine can be produced faster compared to existing ones that weaken the virus. Takara Bio plans to use production facilities previously used for gene therapy drugs.
The company has recently announced that Cytiva to provide instruments and consumables to support Takara Bio’s effort to support development of DNA vaccine with Osaka University and AnGes, Inc. group.
Moderna
Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine reports encouraging interim results from ongoing Phase 1 trials, a potential to produce immunity in people.
Moderna specializes in vaccines designed to elicit an immune response against the coronavirus through the virus’s mRNA—genetic instructions for the virus to replicate inside the host. New methods like Moderna’s are fast to prepare, but they have never led to a licensed vaccine for sale.
The results are encouraging, but we can’t draw conclusions from a phase 1 trial, with data from only eight participants so far. Way more data is needed. The FDA has already given Moderna approval for a phase 2 trial (testing the drug’s biological effect on patients), and Moderna says it will add a 50-microgram arm to the phase 2 study.
A phase 3 trial is expected to start in July. According to the Wall Street Journal, if all Moderna’s trials go well—and that’s a big if—the FDA could grant emergency-use authorization for the vaccine by the fall.
Novavax
Novavax coronavirus vaccines are estimated to be ready by end of 2020. 100m doses are expected to be produced according to Gregory Glenn, the R&D Chief of the company.
U.S. biotech company Novavax is “confident” in its ability to scale up to 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year after starting Phase 1 trials on a vaccine candidate on Monday, Novavax president of research and development Gregory Glenn said on Tuesday.
“I’m very optimistic with our data that we can come out with a vaccine that’s deployable, that could work,” Glenn said. “We think we could make 100 million doses by the end of the year for use.”
Coronavirus vaccine development
There are currently 124 candidate vaccines in development. The World Health Organization (WHO) has created a draft landscape of COVID-19 candidate vaccines. There have been many concepts and techniques being experimented on.
114 candidate vaccines are in preclinical evaluation and 10 candidate vaccines are in clinical evaluation.
The currently potential platforms and type of vaccines are non-replicating viral factor, RNA, inactivated, protein subunit and DNA.