Biotech firm Novavax said on Thursday that its coronavirus vaccine was more than 89% effective in protecting against Covid-19 in its phase three clinical trial conducted in the UK.
The results were based on 62 confirmed Covid-19 infections among the 15,000 trial participants. The company said 56 cases were observed in the placebo group compared to six cases observed in the group that received the vaccine. This resulted in an estimated vaccine efficacy of 89.3%, he said.
The company’s shares rose more than 23% in out-of-hours trading.
With the results, the company “has the potential to play an important role in resolving this global public health crisis,” Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with our partners, collaborators, researchers and regulators around the world to make the vaccine available as quickly as possible.”
The study also found that the vaccine appeared to be 85.6% effective against the UK variant, also known as B.1.1.7. A separate second-phase study in South Africa showed that the vaccine is not as effective against a new strain reaching that country.
The shot was still considered effective in protecting against the virus, but at an efficacy rate of only 49.4% among 44 cases of Covid-19 in South Africa, where 90% of cases contain the new variant of concern. said the company.
As a result of the lower effectiveness against the strain in South Africa, Novavax said it plans to choose a modified version of the vaccine to better protect itself from the new strain “in the coming days.” He plans to test the modified vaccine in the second quarter of this year.
Novavax is among several companies developing a vaccine to fight the virus, which has infected more than 101 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.2 million as of Thursday, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. So far, only two vaccines have been authorized, from Pfizer and Moderna, in the US.
In July, the U.S. government, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, announced that it would pay $ 1.6 billion to Novavax to develop and manufacture the potential vaccine, with the goal of delivering 100 million doses in early 2021.
It is unclear whether Thursday’s data will be enough for Novavax to obtain an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to allow distribution in the United States. The company began a late trial with 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico in late December.
The Novavax vaccine contains synthesized pieces of the surface protein that the coronavirus uses to infect humans. The company said the vaccine was well tolerated, adding that “serious, serious and medically assisted adverse events occurred at low levels and were balanced between the vaccinated and placebo groups.”
In August, the company said data from the first-phase trial found that its vaccine generated a promising immune response. Participants received two doses of the potential vaccine by intramuscular injection approximately 21 days apart. Novavax also said the vaccine was well tolerated without serious adverse events being reported.