The United States has doubled its financial investment, to nearly a billion dollars in total, to support the development of a potential vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the American company Moderna, which enters the last Monday phase of its clinical trial.
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The US government has pledged to provide up to 472 million additional dollars, in addition to the 483 million already announced, Moderna announced this Sunday, July 26 in a press release. This extension is justified according to the biotechnology company because it has decided " to conduct a phase 3 clinical trial considerably larger " than initially planned.
Its experimental vaccine, which triggered antibodies against the coronavirus in all the participants, numbering 45, in the first phase of the trial, can thus be tested from Monday on 30,000 people: half of them will receive one dose of 100 micrograms, the others a placebo.
The United States, the most bereaved country in the world
The United States, the most bereaved country in the world with more than 146,000 deaths and where the number of new daily cases is exploding, announced in recent months massive investments aimed at immunizing Americans from the beginning of next year. On Wednesday, the German-American alliance Biontech / Pfizer had notably declared that the US government would pay it $ 1.95 billion to ensure 100 million doses of its possible vaccine.
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While the vaccine race rages between several laboratories around the world, Moderna's is in the lead, already entering this final phase of clinical trials, which is decisive for whether it is effective and safe. The trial is being conducted in collaboration with US health authorities, recalls the company, which reaffirms to be able to provide some 500 million doses per year, and potentially up to a billion, from 2021. Chinese Sinovac has also announced on July 6 that phase three of the development of its vaccine would begin " this month ", in collaboration with the Brazilian Butantan.
Other projects have shown encouraging results, including a British one developed by the University of Oxford in partnership with the AstraZeneca laboratory, and another, Chinese, led by researchers from several organizations, including the Military School of Medical Sciences. , funded by Hong Kong-listed biotechnology group CanSino Biologics. In all, nearly 200 vaccine candidates have been developed, including 23 in the clinical phase, that is to say tested in humans.