Novavax has announced it plans to begin a Phase 1 clinical test for NVX-CoV2373 -- its SARS-CoV-2 Recombinant Spike Protein Nanoparticle vaccine -- in its clinics in Melbourne and Brisbane, in the coming weeks.
The study will start - with initial data available in July - by around middle of May. This is the third confirmed global Covid-19 vaccine trial, and the first in Australia, the release said.
According to Novavax president and chief executive officer Stanley Erck, the urgent race to produce a coronavirus drug has driven their "rapid identification and selection of an optimal, highly immunogenic drug candidate."
Researchers around the globe are working to find a Covid-19 vaccine that emerged in China last December, killing more than 139,400 people worldwide and infecting over 2,08 million others.
Nucleus Network said in a statement on Wednesday that it will jointly perform trials with the US-based pharmaceutical firm.
Nucleus has a rich history of Phase 1 vaccine testing and a long-standing track record with Novavax, Cameron Johnson, Nucleus Network's Chief Executive Officer, said. Johnson added that they are well prepared to fast-track its testing with first-in-human trials in the coming weeks.
Paul Griffin, a Nucleus Network infectious disease physicist and microbiologist, told local media on Thursday that the human trial procedures would include four stages, following strict guidelines to ensure that they were safe and successful before being published to the public.
Griffin said it would take about 12-18 months to introduce the vaccine to the public. To check the efficacy of this vaccine, a small group of healthy volunteers will be recruited for the trial and, according to Griffin, there was absolutely no risk that they could get infected with the disease by taking part.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization reported that there are at least 20 other COVID-19 candidate vaccines worldwide in production.
Early development efforts by Novavax on vaccines for two other recent coronavirus epidemics - severe acute respiratory respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) along with prior work on Ebola - allow them to exploit their knowledge of coronavirus and adapt their research to establish a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the company disclosed in a statement.
In the stock market, Novavax has gained support from all five TipRanks-polled analysts - giving it a Strong Buy ratings from analysts. Shares have already tripled year to date, but market observers believe the stock could still rise above its current strong levels.
