US officials and others at Moderna said that the vaccine developed by the American company to combat the emerging corona virus (Covid-19) could be ready for widespread use by the end of the year, after the pharmaceutical company announced that it would start testing the vaccine, which includes 30 Alpha has proven safe and effective, which is the last obstacle before the vaccine gets regulatory approval.
This experiment is the first study of its kind at a late stage in the framework of the Trump administration program to accelerate the development of measures against the emerging corona virus, which increases the hope that an effective vaccine will contribute to eradicating the epidemic, and Moderna shares increased by 7.5 percent.
Moderna, which had not previously produced a vaccine in the drug market, received about $ 1 billion from the US government, which contributes to the funding of several candidate vaccines, as part of its "Operation Warp Speed" program.
More than 150 vaccine candidates are currently being exposed to the Corona virus, at various stages of development, including about 24 vaccines that are currently undergoing human trials.
(Pfizer) and (Johnson & Johnson) are conducting advanced clinical trials this month for their candidate vaccines against Corona, and the British (AstraZeneca) pharmaceutical company said that it will start American trials on a large scale this summer on its vaccine that is under development in cooperation with researchers from the University of Oxford .
Drug manufacturers are increasing production at a time when experiments are being conducted to respond as soon as possible to counter the virus, which is still spreading rapidly across the world.
Covid-19 has claimed the lives of nearly 650,000 people worldwide.
The director of the National Institutes of Health, Francis Collins, told reporters that "Moderna" can have tens of millions of ready-made doses if the vaccine is considered safe and effective.
Moderna CEO, Stephen Bansel, confirmed that the company is still on its way to deliver about 500 million doses annually, and it may reach one billion doses annually, starting in 2021.
The last-stage trial was designed to assess the safety of the Moderna vaccine (MRNA-1273) and determine whether it can prevent the symptoms of Covid-19 after two doses.
Anthony Fuchi, senior US health official in the United States and an infectious disease expert, said the experiment could show results by next November or even sooner. Fauchi said he was "not specifically concerned" about the safety of the vaccine after seeing data from smaller trials earlier.
The results of a small study conducted in early stages and published earlier this month showed that volunteers who received two doses of the vaccine had more levels of antibodies that kill the virus than those observed in people who recovered from the disease.
The Covid-19 Disease Prevention Network, a US government-funded program developed by the National Institutes of Health, said it plans a large-scale clinical trial of a candidate vaccine to eliminate Covid-19 with at least 30,000 participants each month during the fall season.