The platform, called AdVac, is also used in an Ebola vaccine that was approved earlier this year.
London:
Johnson & Johnson launched a new late-stage trial in Britain on Monday to test a two-dose regimen of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine among thousands of volunteers, as the US drug maker expands trials by geography and type .
The UK arm of the study aims to recruit 6,000 participants out of a total of 30,000 people worldwide, said scientists leading the UK trial. Volunteers will be recruited from 17 sites across the UK.
They will receive a first dose of a placebo or the experimental vaccine, currently called Ad26COV2, followed by a second dose or a placebo 57 days later, said Saul Faust, professor of pediatric immunology and infectious diseases who co-directs the test. at Southampton University Hospital.
J&J signed an agreement for the global two-dose Phase III clinical trial with the UK government in August, which will run in parallel with a 60,000-person single-shot trial of the investigational vaccine which was launched in September .
If the results of the one-shot trial are positive, the company said it could simplify dispensing millions of doses compared to major competitors requiring two doses. The effectiveness of a double dose vaccine could be affected if people do not return to receive their second injection.
Rival drugmakers Pfizer and BioNtech said last week that their potential injection of COVID-19 showed more than 90% efficacy in interim data from an advanced-stage trial, bolstering hopes that vaccines against pandemic disease could soon be ready for use.
While the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine uses a new technology known as messenger RNA, J&J’s uses a cold virus to deliver genetic material from the coronavirus into the body to trigger an immune response.
The platform, called AdVac, is also used in an Ebola vaccine that was approved earlier this year.
“It is really important that we continue to test many different vaccines from many different manufacturers and then be able to secure the supply to both the UK and the world,” Faust told reporters at a briefing.
Scientists leading the trial in the UK did not give details of other countries that would be involved in the two-dose trial, but said Britain was the first country to start it. Recruitment for the study will end in March 2021 and the trial will last for 12 months.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
