Moderna shares rose 2% to $ 81.49 at the close in New York.
Moderna Inc.’s Covid-19 vaccine candidate protected against the virus in a trial that inoculated 16 monkeys, an encouraging step on the road to human defense against the pandemic.
Two injections of the vaccine protected against high exposure to the virus at two different dosage levels, Moderna said in results published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The primates showed no signs of creating increased disease, a problem that has sometimes been associated with vaccines.
The results, while holding up in humans, suggest that the vaccine may be able to protect against Covid-19 in the upper and lower respiratory tract. In all of the monkeys that received the high doses of the vaccine, no viral replication was detectable in their nose two days after becoming infected with the virus, according to the study results. And no viral replication was observed in the lung fluid of 7 out of 8 animals in both dose groups after being provoked by the virus. All 16 monkeys showed at least some signs of protection, with limited lung inflammation seen in the lungs of both groups.
The US government is providing $ 955 million to help fund vaccine development.
While the data is encouraging, a much larger test is underway for Moderna, involving 30,000 humans. The phase 3 trial to determine the safety and efficacy of the vaccine will begin producing data in November or December. The vaccine uses messenger RNA, a synthetic form of the virus’s genetic material designed to push the body’s immune system into attack mode. The US government is providing $ 955 million to help fund vaccine development.
Moderna shares rose 2% to $ 81.49 at the close in New York.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
