Moderna vaccine results 'stunningly impressive,' Fauci tells AFP

WASHINGTON - The United States' top infectious disease official on Monday hailed early results from Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine as "stunningly impressive," calling the result a validation for experimental mRNA technology that some had doubted.

"I had said, and I must admit, that I would have been satisfied with 70, or at the most 75 percent efficacy," Anthony Fauci told AFP.

"The idea that we have a 94.5 percent effective vaccine is stunningly impressive. It is really a spectacular result that I don't think anybody had anticipated would be this good."

The physician-scientist leads the National Institutes of Health's National Institutes of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which began co-developing the vaccine in January, shortly after Chinese authorities disclosed the genetic sequence of the new coronavirus.

The vaccine is based on a new technology that uses a synthetic version of a molecule called "messenger RNA" to hack into human cells, and effectively turn them into vaccine-making factories.

"There were many people who had reservations about using something that had not been tried and true over the years, in fact some people even criticized us for that."

On Monday, Moderna and the NIH announced their preliminary results based on 95 of the 30,000 volunteers they have recruited who fell ill with COVID-19.

Of the 95, 90 had been in the trial's placebo group, and 5 in the group that received the drug, called mRNA-1273, translating to an efficacy rate of 94.5 percent.

Asked whether it was too early to say if the mRNA platform had now been proven, Fauci, who is usually known for his cautious statements, said the jury was in.

"Oh no! I think when you have 2 vaccines, like this, that have proven to be greater than 90 percent effective, I think that mRNA is here, it's established itself, it doesn't need to prove anything anymore.

"The data speak for themself, it isn't me, it isn't my opinion, look at the data."

While Moderna has basked in the spotlight, Fauci was keen to highlight the critical work of the NIH, which he said was responsible for developing the correct "conformation" or spatial arrangement of the virus' spike protein, which the vaccine makes inside the body to elicit an immune response.

Looking forward, he said he was worried about anti-vaccine sentiment in the United States, the hardest-hit country in the world. 

"There's a long way to go -- don't forget, you've got to get this distributed, you've got to get most of the people to get vaccinated.

"There's a lot of anti-vaccine sentiment in this country. You've got to overcome that and convince people to get vaccinated because a vaccine with a high degree of efficacy is of no use if nobody gets vaccinated." 

Agence France-Presse

US doubles spending on potential virus vaccine to nearly $1 billion

WASHINGTON - The United States has doubled its investment -- to nearly $1 billion -- to expedite development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine by American firm Moderna, which on Monday begins the decisive final phase of clinical trials.

The government now plans to spend up to $472 million on top of the previously announced $483 million, the Moderna biotechnology company announced Sunday.

Moderna said the added investment was justified by its decision, in conjunction with the government, to "significantly" expand a Phase Three clinical trial of a candidate vaccine to include 30,000 participants. 

In a small, initial trial, Moderna's experimental vaccine produced coronavirus antibodies -- which should help fend off the disease -- in the bodies of all 45 participants. 

In the expanded trial starting Monday, half the 30,000 participants will receive a 100-microgram dose of the vaccine, while the rest will be given a placebo. 

The United States has suffered more than 146,000 coronavirus deaths, leading the world in that grim category, even as the number of new cases has continued to surge. 

It has announced massive investments in a huge effort to expedite vaccine development and get millions of Americans vaccinated by early next year.

On Wednesday, the American-German BioNTech/Pfizer pharmaceutical alliance announced that the US government had committed $1.95 billion to procure 100 million doses of its eventual vaccine.

With laboratories around the world in a furious race to develop a first effective vaccine, Moderna seems to hold the lead as it enters a final round of clinical trials -- a decisive step in determining whether a vaccine is both effective and safe. 

Moderna, which has been working with US health authorities, said it expects to be able to produce 500 million doses a year -- and potentially up to 1 billion -- starting in 2021.

Chinese biotech firm Sinovac said July 6 that it, too, would begin a Phase Three clinical trial "this month," in collaboration with Brazil's Butantan biologic research center. 

Also reporting encouraging early results have been a British project developed by Oxford University in partnership with the multinational AstraZenica laboratory, and a Chinese project, led by researchers from agencies including the Academy of Military Medical Sciences.

That effort is being financed by the CanSino biotechnology group, which is listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. 

In all, nearly 200 candidate vaccines are in development, including 23 now in the clinical phase, being tested on humans.

Agence France-Presse