The University of Washington Medicine Retrovirology Lab at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle processes samples from Novavax's phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial.
Karen Ducey is a photographer.
A new vaccine is going to be available around the world. It won't replace the successful vaccines currently available, but it could make a difference in the course of the Pandemic.
The new vaccines are called protein subunit vaccines. They inject people with a small amount of the virus. The small portion of the vaccine that's critical for the virus to enter cells is called the spike protein.
freezers for storage are not required for the stable nature of the vaccines. A regular fridge is adequate. It's much easier to distribute the vaccine.
The vaccine and infectious disease division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle assumed that the vaccine's role in the development of a COVID vaccine would be a big one. There are already vaccines on the market for infectious diseases.
Pfizer and Moderna are two of the vaccine technologies being developed by Pfizer and Novava, while Johnson & Johnson is working on a vaccine for COVID-19.
There are billions of vaccine doses in this country and around the world because of the first two technologies.
Novavax was confident its vaccine would be out there.
In an interview in September 2020, the president of research and development at Novavax said that they have a lot of people working on scaling up their vaccine. We're going to have a lot of product by the end of the year and we're talking about more than 2 billion doses in 2021.
Glenn's optimism was not correct. The vaccine company ran into manufacturing problems after a large study of the vaccine took longer than expected.
The vaccine was stumbled on by Sanofi.
The vaccine can still play a role in bringing the outbreak under control. She says that they're a little further behind than the others.
Ali Ellebedy, an immunologist at Washington University in St. Louis, says having multiple options is always a good idea.
The majority of the time, Ellebedy studies vaccines. Scientists are still trying to learn their strengths and weaknesses. It would be helpful to have a large group of people get a vaccine that is familiar to them.
The University of Washington Medicine Retrovirology Lab at Harborview Medical Center is where the serology samples from the Novavax phase 3 COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial will be tested.
Karen Ducey is a photographer.
He says it would be great to have a vaccine with a subunit component.
It appears that that day is coming. Large studies of the vaccine have shown that it works well, and so far there are no safety concerns.
Novavax has begun to file for emergency use authorization.
"We have filed for authorization all over the world, including in the U.K., Australia, Canada, New Zealand," says the vice president of global corporate affairs and investor relations for Novavax.
Novavax thinks it has licked its manufacturing problems because of these filings.
Taylor expects the company to apply for emergency use authorization in the country early next year. She says that Novavax has collaborated with several vaccine manufacturers, including the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest maker of vaccines.
She says that they have a lot of confidence that they will be able to produce over 2 billion doses in the next few years.
That may be familiar. Maybe it is doable now.
