Biotech company Moderna announced on Monday that early trials of their potential coronavirus vaccine are showing promising results, with clinical trial volunteers showing signs of antibody development against the virus. Tanzia Haq reports.
The results come from a sample of eight test subjects. Here’s what you need to know:
- Moderna is developing the vaccine with the National Institute of Health and said they now have the go-ahead to run trials on larger samples.
- Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said that if future studies went well, a viable vaccine could be available to the public as early as January 2021.
- A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said that Moncef Slaoui, earlier the leader of President Trump’s coronavirus effort, would be divesting his $10 million worth of Moderna stocks.
- Moderna’s news saw its stock prices skyrocket by more than 25% by Monday afternoon.
- The Boston-based company is one of eight developers worldwide doing human clinical trials against coronavirus, according to WHO Two other US-based companies, Pfizer and Inovio are also working on developing a vaccine.
Researchers are currently trying to find the right level of antibodies that will ultimately prove safe against the coronavirus and the duration of this safe period.
Moderna reported the vaccine showed a dose-response, which means the test subjects taking the 100 mcg dose produced more antibodies to the virus than subjects taking lower doses.
