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Pfizer and Moderna came out the door for the first time with Covid-19-approved vaccines, but three other drug manufacturers are following them closely and could help secure herd immunity in the United States and other countries.
Novavax is launching a trial of 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico for its vaccine, which could be approved as early as the spring of 2021.
Novavax
the vaccine uses proteins to elicit an immune response after injection, as well as a substance derived from Chilean evergreen trees to enhance this response.
Developing vaccines from AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson use viral vector technology, in which a modified virus elicits an immune response.
AstraZeneca‘s
the drug is expected to be approved in the UK this week and the company has said its vaccine “should continue to be effective” in the variant that was first discovered there.
To date, more than two million Americans have been vaccinated
Pfizer
and Modern drugs, which use synthetic messenger RNA to activate the body to produce protective antibodies against the virus.
Having several vaccines increases the overall supply and provides options that may be more effective in different cross-sections of the population. President-elect Joe Biden also plans to help supply juice, invoking the Defense Production Act once he takes office in January, according to a member of his Covid-19 advisory board.
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