Novavax has said its COVID-19 vaccine is 100% effective in protecting against “moderate and severe disease” following its phase three trial results.
The American biotechnology company said the trial had shown its vaccine was also 93% effective against circulating variants of concern and variants of interest, and 91% effective in protecting high-risk populations.
The trial, which involved 29,960 participants across 119 sites in the US and Mexico, showed 90.4% efficacy overall.
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‘Vaccines will not be enough to stop virus’
The study placed an emphasis on having participants that represented communities and demographics most impacted by the disease.
Within the group, 77 people tested positive for COVID-19, 63 were on a placebo and 14 had received the vaccine.
All of the cases in the vaccinated group were defined as “mild” while 10 “moderate” cases and four “severe” cases were observed among those who had been given the placebo.
Preliminary safety data from the study also showed “generally mild and moderate” pain and tenderness around the injection site, as well as fatigue, muscle pain and headache were the most common symptoms in participants.
Gregory Glenn, president of research and development at Novavax, said: “Our vaccine will be a critical part of the solution to COVID-19 and we are grateful to the study participants and trial staff who made this study possible, as well as our supporters, including the US government.”
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The company remains on track to be able to manufacture 100 million vaccine doses a month by the end of September and 150 million doses by the end of the year, once it receives regulatory approvals.
The UK has ordered 60 million doses of the Novavax vaccine pending its approval.
President and chief executive officer of Novavax, Stanley Erck, said the results show it is “one step closer to addressing the critical and persistent global public health need” for additional COVID-19 jabs.
He added: “Novavax continues to work with a sense of urgency to complete our regulatory submissions and deliver this vaccine, built on a well understood and proven platform, to a world that is still in great need of vaccines.”
One expert, the immediate past chair of the BMA Public Health Medicine Committee, Dr Peter English has hailed the results as “excellent news”.
He said: “The vaccine is a much more traditional sort of vaccine than the mRNA and vector vaccines currently in use.
“It remains to be seen whether this will have consequences in terms of real-world effectiveness or safety; but the more different types of vaccine we have, the greater our ability will be to optimise effectiveness and safety in different groups”.
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A number of coronavirus vaccines have been developed
World leaders attending the G7 Summit in Cornwall over the weekend pledged to proe one billion doses to poorer nations.
Last month, Johnson & Johnson’s jab became the fourth vaccine to be approved for use in the UK and was shown to be 67% effective in preventing moderate to severe COVID-19.
Moderna’s vaccine started being rolled out in the UK in April and its phase three trial results showed it was 94.5% against coronavirus.
The jab developed by Oxford University and pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca has been shown to have an efficacy rate of 90%.
