Novavax Inc. NVAX,
He said on Thursday that his COVID-19 vaccine appears to be 89% effective according to the first findings of a British study and that it also appears to work, though not as well, against new mutated strains of the virus circulating in the country and the South. -Africa.
Shares jumped 27% in out-of-hours trading on Thursday after the announcement.
The announcement comes amid concerns over whether a wide variety of vaccines to be rolled out around the world will be strong enough to protect itself from new and worrying variants, and the world also needs new types of outbreaks to increase scarce supply. .
The study of 15,000 people in Britain is still ongoing. But, according to a provisional analysis, 62 participants have so far been diagnosed with COVID-19, only six from the group that received the vaccine and the rest that received fake shots.
The infections occurred at a time when Britain was experiencing a jump in COVID-19 caused by a more contagious variant. A preliminary analysis found that more than half of the process participants who became infected had the mutated version. The numbers are very small, but Novavax said they suggest the vaccine is nearly 96% effective against the older coronavirus and nearly 86% effective against the new variant.
Scientists have been even more concerned about a strain first discovered in South Africa that carries different mutations, and the results of a smaller Novavax study suggest that the vaccine works but not as well as it does against the variant of Great Britain.
The South African study included some HIV volunteers. Among HIV-negative volunteers, the vaccine appears to be 60% effective. Including immunologically compromised volunteers, overall protection was 49 percent, the company said. Although genetic testing is still ongoing, so far approximately 90% of the COVID-19 diseases found in the South African study appear due to the new mutant.
Preliminary findings may help Novavax obtain authorization for its vaccine in Britain, but the U.S. government is funding a much larger study that still recruits volunteers.
COVID-19 vaccines train the body to recognize the new coronavirus, primarily the spike protein that coats it. But the Novavax candidate is done differently than the first shots used. The Maryland company, called the recombinant protein vaccine, uses genetic engineering to grow harmless copies of the coronavirus spike protein in insect cells. Scientists extract and purify the protein and then mix it with a chemical that boosts immunity.