We should get two more major vaccine announcements before Christmas.
US company Moderna this afternoon announced that its vaccine candidate is 94% effective with “no significant safety concerns.”
It is the second large-scale international trial to report positive results after Pfizer said its candidate was more than 90% effective this day last week.
On The Pat Kenny Show this morning, Professor O’Neill said the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are the first vaccine candidates to be based on RNA – something that might explain why they are so effective.
“Lots of us knew you couldn’t use old fashioned approaches because we never got a vaccine for the common cold and of course this virus is in the same family,” he said.
“So, people knew, ‘let’s try something different’ and RNA was a newish thing that needed to be tested and then they got a big T-Cell response which other vaccines wouldn’t have done.
“You need a big T-Cell response. If the virus is up in your nose, antibodies might kill it and that is great but if it goes deep into your lungs, now you need the heavy-hitters which are the T-Cells, they need to be mobilised
“This vaccine can do both and they reckon that might be why they have got to 90%.
“That 90% might go down a bit as they get more numbers of course, we still don’t know if that is the final number, but even if it got to 70% that is still a big success story.
“We could live with it being slightly less efficacious – but it may stay at 90% we are waiting to see if that number is held which would be tremendous.”
US pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer headquarters in New York City, 09-11-2020. Image: Charles Guerin/ABACAPRESS.COMProfessor O'Neill said the Oxford/AstraZeneca trial and the Chinese Sinovac trial are both due to announce before Christmas.
Speaking less than two hours before Moderna announced, he said it would be a "great result" if the announcement was as positive as Pfizer's.
“They have been going after RNA vaccines as well. If they get the same level of efficacy, that is great result because it means two completely separate companies have got the same outcome and it is independent of each other so that means this technology is reproducible and that gives us even more hope then.”
Professor O’Neill said scientists are in a “really positive frame of mind before Christmas,” with a host of other companies due to announce in the coming weeks.
- Sinovac – Chinese company due to announce before the end of November
- CureVac – has already reported a good response among 18 to 60-year-olds.
- Medicago – A plant-based vaccine that has claimed a great response so far.
- Arctura – Backed by the Singapore Government to the tune of €220m, with good responses reported so far.
- Novavax – US company that was provided with €1.6bn by the US Government as part of Operation Warp Speed.
“I think they have all woken up slightly,” he said. “What has happened in a way is, with the announcement of the Pfizer success, they all now want to get in, make sure their name is heard and make sure they are in the race.
“It is a striking business. There are so many vaccines now moving forward that we are bound to get there.
“Remember hopefully this week, we might hear from Moderna, then AstraZeneca with their famous Oxford Vaccine, before Christmas for definite and then Sinovac.
“Those three are coming up next in the schedule if you like. We should hear from them soon.”
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