Oxford University will begin human trials as soon as tomorrow on a new Covid-19 vaccine and the UK is making sure they get all the funding they need:
MARKET WATCH – A coronavirus vaccine being developed by Oxford University will enter human trials as early as this Thursday, according to the U.K.’s health secretary.
The U.K. government will provide £20 million ($24 million) to the university’s team and a further £22.5 million to Imperial College, where scientists are also working on a vaccine. Scientists at Oxford have previously said the aim is to produce a million doses of the vaccine by September.
Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock praised both teams for making “rapid progress” and said the U.K. will throw “everything we’ve got” at developing a vaccine.
He also said the government would invest in manufacturing capabilities so that if either vaccine was successful it could be available for British people “as soon as humanly possible.”
“We are going to back them to the hilt and give them every resource that they need to get the best possible chance of success as soon as possible. The upside of being the first country in the world to develop a successful vaccine is so huge that I am throwing everything at it,” Hancock said.
However, he insisted vaccine development was a “process of trial and error and trial again.”
The Oxford University project, a collaboration between the university’s Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group, opened recruitment for the clinical trial — for healthy adults between 18 and 55 — at the end of March, having begun research on a vaccine against the coronavirus-borne disease COVID-19 in February. Trials will now begin as soon as this Thursday, the health secretary revealed in the government’s daily briefing on Tuesday.
Praising the team, Hancock said reaching this stage in normal times would “take years.”
It would be amazing if they found a vaccine this quickly and were able to start producing it before September.
Israel is also working on a vaccine, but other than raising more money I haven’t heard any progress updates since the first reporting on their efforts at the end of February.
But you shouldn’t get your hopes up for a vaccine anytime soon, according to Roche’s CEO:
Dozens of teams of researchers across the world are racing to develop a vaccine to stem the spread of coronavirus infections, bring down death rates, and allow countries to reopen their economies.
However, Severin Schwan, Roche’s chief executive, said he was skeptical that a vaccine could be fully tested, manufactured, and widely distributed within the next 12 to 18 months.
“I’m afraid that the most likely scenario is that we will not have a vaccine before the end of next year,” Schwan said on a Wednesday conference call with reporters, adding that an 18-month timeline is “very ambitious.”
He said that antibody tests, rather than a vaccine, would be key to allowing people to return to normal life before 2021.
As much as I would love to see something soon, Schwan is probably right. But regardless, we should continue to reopen the economy and prepare to deal with whatever comes. We will undoubtedly see numbers of cases increase as people re-enter the workforce, but we’re just gonna have to figure out how to deal with it as we await a vaccine.