Late last year the company was getting ready to mount a large study of the vaccine's effectiveness when the early results in a smaller group of people showed it did not seem to be inducing the immune response that would be protective.
Its protein subunit vaccine against the coronavirus is also grown in cells in the lab. "We're a latecomer, but we're coming," she says.Īnother latecomer that's coming is the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi. Landry acknowledges that development of the Medicago COVID-19 vaccine has lagged behind others. But when injected as a vaccine your body will raise a good immune response."Įarly studies suggest Medicago's candidate vaccine does just that, and the company is confident enough in those findings that it's already begun a large study in people that could involve as many as 30,000 volunteers in 11 countries. "So, if you look at an image of it, it looks like a virus, but it cannot induce any disease. "The plant will assemble the protein in a shape and form that is looking like the virus," says Nathalie Landry, Medicago's executive vice president for scientific and medical affairs. The plants do something very valuable - they make a lipid shell that surrounds a bunch of the viral proteins, with the proteins sticking out. The plants used are related to the tobacco plant, and have been modified to contain the genetic instructions to make the viral protein. That's the approach being used by the Canadian biotech firm Medicago. But there's another way to make the protein: Get plants in a greenhouse to do it. To make the virus protein, Novavax uses giant vats of cells grown in the lab. Gregory Glenn, president of research and development for Novavax, told an audience at a recent webinar hosted by the International Society for Vaccines that "we anticipate filing for authorization in the U.K., U.S. The vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer contain genetic instructions for the spike protein, and it's up to the cells in our bodies to make the protein itself.Ī large test of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine's effectiveness, conducted in tens of thousands of volunteers in the United States and Mexico, is about to wrap up. In the case of the coronavirus, that "something" is one of the proteins in the virus - the spike protein. Consider it an advance warning if the real virus ever turns up, the immune system is ready to try to squelch it. In general, vaccines work by showing people's immune systems something that looks like the virus but really isn't. but is based on a well-understood technology and doesn't require special refrigeration. It works somewhat differently from the current crop of vaccines authorized for use in the U.S. It's what's known as a protein subunit vaccine.
Novavax's vaccine candidate contains a noninfectious bit of the virus - the spike protein - with a substance called an adjuvant added that helps the body generate a strong immune response.Ī new kind of COVID-19 vaccine could be available as soon as this summer. A vial of the experimental Novavax coronavirus vaccine is ready for use in a London study in 2020.
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