NovaVax vaccine, which the Korean government is pursuing to pre-purchase, is’perplexed’ due to the departure of clinical participants in the US

Input 2021.01.20 22:43

The clinical trial of a novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19) vaccine by the US pharmaceutical company NovaVax has been disrupted. The final stage, Phase 3, is in progress, and elderly participants have announced that they will get Pfizer or Moder or vaccines. The NovaVax vaccine is a vaccine that the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and President Moon Jae-in announced that they are pursuing a pre-purchase for 20 million people.

The Washington Post (WP) quoted Dr. Benjamin Ruft of Stony Brook University Hospital, who oversees the NovaVax clinical trial on the 20th (local time). Since then, the participants are falling out of clinical trials.” Dr. Ruft told WP, ​​”A significant number of participants have already made inquiries, and the number is constantly increasing,” and “the number of applicants is decreasing.”

The U.S. government has previously encouraged the provincial vaccination targets to be expanded to 65 years of age or older by medical staff. Accordingly, some states, such as New York, New Jersey, and California, expanded the targets of vaccination to 65 years of age or older.

It is a frustrating situation for NovaVax, who has not already recruited as many clinical participants as expected. Novabacks announced last month that it would save 30,000 participants from the United States, but as of last week it had only collected 9,000.

NovaVax had also had a hard time finding a factory to produce large-scale vaccines earlier. Other pharmaceutical companies started producing vaccines from the manufacturer’Immergent Biosolution’, which had originally signed a contract, and hastily turned to’Fujifilm Diosinth Biotechnology’. At the time, NovaVax side complained that “competition between pharmaceutical companies has caused changes in contracts, and the company is losing its ability to recruit clinical participants.”

However, there seems to be no big problem with the application for approval of vaccine use. This is because NovaVax plans to apply for approval to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with test data conducted in the UK, even if it does not secure enough clinical participants over 65 years of age in the US. NovaVax has already tested 15,000 people in the UK. In this regard, it is reported that the FDA said, “It is willing to review the application for approval based on overseas experimental data.”

Meanwhile, NovaVax is planning to produce vaccines in Korea by signing a technology introduction contract with SK Bioscience. The Korean government is planning to pre-purchase about 20 million NovaVax vaccines produced by SK Bioscience and supply them to Korea when the contract between these pharmaceutical companies is concluded. When the government purchases NovaVax vaccine, Korea will have a total of 76 million vaccines, including AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Modena, Janssen vaccines, and Covax facility contracts. do.