Vaccine candidates advancing slowly. Seven months more before test results.

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The genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was published on 11 January 2020, triggering intense global R&D activity to develop a vaccine against the disease. The scale of the humanitarian and economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is driving evaluation of next-generation vaccine technology platforms through novel paradigms to accelerate development, and the first COVID-19 vaccine candidate entered human clinical testing with unprecedented rapidity on 16 March 2020.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is working with global health authorities and vaccine developers to support the development of vaccines against COVID-19. To facilitate this effort, we have developed and are continuously maintaining an overview of the global landscape of COVID-19 vaccine development activity. Our landscape database includes vaccine development programmes reported through the WHO’s authoritative and continually updated list, along with other projects identified from publicly available and proprietary sources (see Supplementary Box 1). The landscape provides insights into key characteristics of COVID-19 vaccine R&D and serves as a resource for ongoing portfolio management at CEPI. We have also shared our landscape information with others in the global health ecosystem to help improve coordination in the COVID-19 outbreak response and enable global resources and capabilities to be directed towards the most promising vaccine candidates.

COVID-19 vaccine R&D landscape

As of 8 April 2020, the global COVID-19 vaccine R&D landscape includes 115 vaccine candidates (Fig. 1), of which 78 are confirmed as active and 37 are unconfirmed (development status cannot be determined from publicly available or proprietary information sources). Of the 78 confirmed active projects, 73 are currently at exploratory or preclinical stages. The most advanced candidates have recently moved into clinical development, including mRNA-1273 from Moderna, Ad5-nCoV from CanSino Biologicals, INO-4800 from Inovio, and LV-SMENP-DC and pathogen-specific aAPC from Shenzhen Geno-Immune Medical Institute (Table 1). Numerous other vaccine developers have indicated plans to initiate human testing in 2020.
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Investigational vaccine protects monkeys against COVID-19 pneumonia

by National Institutes of Health

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

A single dose of ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, an investigational vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, has protected six rhesus macaques from pneumonia caused by the virus, according to National Institutes of Health scientists and University of Oxford collaborators. SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes COVID-19. The researchers posted their data to the preprint server bioRxiv. The findings are not yet peer-reviewed but are being shared to assist the public health response to COVID-19. Based on these data, a Phase 1 trial of the candidate vaccine began on April 23 in healthy volunteers in the United Kingdom.