While the scientists across the world are working to find a vaccine against the novel coronavirus, all eyes are on US-based company Moderna. The experts said that the US-based biotechnology firm has shown encouraging early results on a small group of healthy volunteers. Reportedly, the experts said that the results have propelled it to a pole position in the race of 118.
Recently, the World Health Organisation (WHO) stated that eight candidate vaccines for COVID-19 are in the clinical evaluation, while 110 are in the preclinical stage. The preclinical development is a stage of research in which important feasibility, iterative testing, and drug safety data are collected, while the clinical trials are research studies performed on people.
Early data from vaccine candidate “mRNA-1273” showed that it produced protective antibodies in a group of eight healthy volunteers, Moderna said. The other COVID-19 vaccine is the one being developed by scientists at Oxford University. It appears protective in a small study of six monkeys, promising findings that led to the start of human trials late last month.
Michael Breen, associate director, Infectious Disease, at GlobalData, a UK-based data analytics and consulting company, said that "Because Moderna's is the only vaccine having demonstrated any kind of immunologic response in the COVID-19 field, we would consider this to be the leading candidate."
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The Moderna on Monday announced the positive interim clinical data of mRNA-1273, from Phase 1 study led by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).
-PTC News