covid-19

[RandBlade]

Oh I agree that we should temper our enthusiasm but two points. Firstly today's news was positive so its worth discussing as news. Secondly and specifically about timing I was replying to Loki's comments about timing and how it takes months to produce the vaccine . . . it does indeed but they've already begun so the vaccine will be ready for delivery from September.

That doesn't guarantee of course the vaccine will work but it does mean that the usual timeline of how long it takes to reach distribution will be reduced from normal when it first needs to get approval and then production starts. The few months delay for production that Loki referred to is eliminated.

If it doesn't work it doesn't work, as I said then it goes in the bin. C'est la vie. But if it does work it will be ready in months not years.

As for those two they're the only ones I know of not from China that have reached Phase III trials already so its not simply that they're getting publicity but they are genuinely further down the track as far as I can tell. Doesn't mean again that they'll be approved in the end but its reassuring to have them in Phase III trials already.

PS the Oxford team admit by themselves they're somewhat lucky, in as much as you can call anyone lucky right now. They were already working on a SARS vaccine when this hit and that research has given them a headstart into producing a vaccine for this.

[Hazir]

I'm wondering why we don't hear a peep out of India.

[wiggin]

Oh I agree that we should temper our enthusiasm but two points. Firstly today's news was positive so its worth discussing as news. Secondly and specifically about timing I was replying to Loki's comments about timing and how it takes months to produce the vaccine . . . it does indeed but they've already begun so the vaccine will be ready for delivery from September.

That doesn't guarantee of course the vaccine will work but it does mean that the usual timeline of how long it takes to reach distribution will be reduced from normal when it first needs to get approval and then production starts. The few months delay for production that Loki referred to is eliminated.

If it doesn't work it doesn't work, as I said then it goes in the bin. C'est la vie. But if it does work it will be ready in months not years.

As for those two they're the only ones I know of not from China that have reached Phase III trials already so its not simply that they're getting publicity but they are genuinely further down the track as far as I can tell. Doesn't mean again that they'll be approved in the end but its reassuring to have them in Phase III trials already.

PS the Oxford team admit by themselves they're somewhat lucky, in as much as you can call anyone lucky right now. They were already working on a SARS vaccine when this hit and that research has given them a headstart into producing a vaccine for this.

Yes, most pharma companies with decent candidates are ramping up production, often with government support (it's actually a rather more interesting list of which companies are willing to drop a billion or so dollars on ramping up production without government support). It's common sense.

Regardless, I'm not sure you should dismiss the 2 Chinese vaccines in Phase III trials, nor should you dismiss the Pfizer/BioNTech effort which is entering phase III within a week or two (about the same timeline as Moderna), or the other advanced work by e.g. JNJ. I think the real issue here is that people think that certain milestones (like an early Phase II data readout or entering Phase III studies) are super significant if they happen a few weeks earlier than another effort. This is not a sprint. There are many reasons why a slightly slower development program might end up working better as a usable vaccine in the real world - manufacturability, or duration/extent of immunity, or safety profile.

Most of the high profile efforts to date in the West (including all three I've mentioned) have used existing successful vaccination strategies (for a number of reasons), preferring newer methods that do not have a lot of clinical experience backing them up. There's reasons for doing so, and I hope they're successful. But maybe some older techniques will yield better results in the long run - or maybe none of the current approaches will work particularly well.

This is a very, very difficult problem with an extremely limited timeframe in which to solve it. It is in no way obvious that current efforts will be successful, or that a single company's reasonably decent Phase II early results are a game changer. We should note positive progress, certainly, but let's not make any plans for Christmas.