A Leading Vaccine Candidate Shows Successful Trial Result

May 18, 2020 (EIRNS)—One hopeful vaccine-trial result feeding into the Trump Administration’s “Project Warp Speed” was announced this morning by Massachusetts-based Moderna Corp. It has a vaccine candidate already in the second part of a Phase 1 trial—following a safety trial—in which certain elements or “endpoints” of efficacy are tested and the optimum dosage is determined by “dose-scaling.” The company said that all four dosages used, including the lowest, 25 micrograms, produced antibodies to COVID-19 in all 45 subjects, equivalent to the antibody strength of recovered patients.

This trial is being conducted in cooperation with the National Institutes of Health, one of the government agencies now working in the “Warp Speed” project.

“These interim Phase 1 data, while early, demonstrate that vaccination with mRNA-1273 elicits an immune response of the magnitude caused by natural infection starting with a dose as low as 25 µg,” said Moderna chief medical officer Dr. Tal Zaks. “When combined with the success in preventing viral replication in the lungs of a pre-clinical challenge model at a dose that elicited similar levels of neutralizing antibodies, these data substantiate our belief that mRNA-1273 has the potential to prevent COVID-19 disease and advance our ability to select a dose for pivotal trials.”