As COVID-19 continues to ravage the global population, vaccination is becoming the sole hope for an effective disease control and prevention. Numerous pharmaceutical firms are racing and competing to develop a potential vaccine by deploying all their skills and resources. Companies have substantially accelerated the timeframe of vaccine production in comparison to the typical vaccine development process.
The publication of genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 on January 11, triggered intense global R&D activity towards vaccine development. Fortunately, up until the virus has not mutated to any significant extent maintaining its relatively stable SARS-CoV-2 genome. Currently, there exist roughly 4 to 10 genetic variations between the origin virus from Wuhan and the strains currently circulating. That’s a relatively small number of mutations for having passed through a large number of people. This makes it advantageous towards researchers attempt to create a single version of the COVID-19 vaccine.
This genomic data paved the way for range of novel technology platforms to evaluate vaccine development landscape for COVID-19, including nucleic acid (DNA and RNA), virus-like particle, peptide, viral vector (replicating and nonreplicating), recombinant protein, live attenuated virus and inactivated virus approaches. Vaccines based on viral vectors offer a high level of protein expression and long-term stability, and induce strong immune responses. Of the confirmed active vaccine candidates, 72 per cent are being developed by private/industry developers, with the remaining 28 per cent of projects being led by academic, public sector and other non-profit organizations.
This story is from the June 2020 edition of BioSpectrum Asia.
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This story is from the June 2020 edition of BioSpectrum Asia.
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