Written by: Parker Davis Edited by: Esther Melamed In addition to Pfizer/BioNTech announcing their vaccine as being up to 95% effective in Phase 3 trials, Moderna and the University of Oxford partnered with AstraZeneca have added their names to the list of published vaccine efficacy data. Astonishingly, Moderna has reported in a news update that its vaccine is about 94% effective in preventing COVID-19, and recent reports indicate that not a single volunteer in their trial developed severe symptoms (Cohen, 2020). What’s more, early data from Phase 1 and 2 trials indicate that these …
Pfizer and BioNTech Vaccine Efficacy, Remdesivir officially FDA approved, and Bamlanivimab gains EUA
Over the previous month, there have been many exciting advances in the arena of COVID-19 clinical trials. To start, recently Pfizer and BioNTech announced 90% efficacy (at 7 days post the second dose) in their BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA vaccine candidate. It is important to remember that these patients are not having their SARS-CoV-2 antibodies titers checked, rather the reported efficacy is based on the development of SARS-CoV-2 post treatment in the placebo and vaccine groups. Also of note is the timing at which this COVID-19 vaccine operates. It is a two dose vaccine separated by approximately …
WHO SOLIDARITY Trial Findings, Tocilizumab in COVID-19, and New NIH COVID-19 Clinical Trials
The first clinical trial update for this week is the recent publication on Tocilizumab in COVID-19 (Stone JH, et al. 2020). Tocilizumab is an anti-IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody (mAb) that was being tested as a potential treatment for COVID-19 associated IL-6 cytokine storm. The study demonstrated no efficacy of Tocilizumab in reducing intubation or death in the 243 moderate hospitalized patients that were recruited. Although a small study size, this report confirms previous findings from other anti-IL-6 and anti-IL-6 receptor antibody trials and suggests targeting IL-6 may not be the …