Today, Medicago and GSK will announce promising interim results after studying the second phase of the adjuvant candidate vaccine against COVID-19. The neutralizing antibody response is ten times greater than in people who recover without vaccine.
After two doses, antibody production was similar in both adults and the elderly.
No serious adverse events were reported. For Natalie Sharland, Senior Director of Scientific and Medical Affairs at Medicago, this is “very good news.”
“What we got in the second phase of the study is almost a mirror image of the results obtained in the phase one study. We were able to confirm what we observed during the first phase, as you explained. After two doses, it was confirmed that the level of equivalent antibodies that prevented the virus, They were the same regardless of the age of the person who received the candidate vaccine.
According to Ms Sharland, the percentage of vaccine efficacy will be known during the third phase, which is currently underway.
“The level of neutralization of the antibodies that we see gives us a very good hope,” she said. When an antibody binds to a virus, it neutralizes it by preventing it from infecting cells. “
Only one dose in some cases
People who have fought COVID-19 need only one dose of the vaccine because their system has already produced antibodies.
“With our dose of the candidate vaccine, we have a level of antibodies 10 times higher than those who have been infected with the Covid virus,” recalls Ms. Charland.
The third phase, which began on March 16, aims to measure the efficacy of the candidate vaccine randomly in 30,000 people in North America, Latin America and Europe. Employment continues.
Last April, Health Canada agreed to review the results of Medicago’s third phase on an ongoing basis, which would speed up the approval process to allow for distribution in the third quarter of 2021.