The US National Institutes of Health (NIH) and American biotechnology company Moderna have started human trials of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate, scientists announced Monday.
The third-phase trial, dubbed COVE (Coronavirus Efficacy), will include around 30,000 US participants at multiple clinical sites.
The trial will give participants 100-microgram doses of the mRNA vaccine, which is called mRNA-1273, on the first day. Participants will also receive another 100-microgram dose of the vaccine 29 days later. Some of the patients in the trial will only be given a placebo.
On Monday afternoon, Moderna’s share price spiked by more than 8% after the biotech company announced the upcoming trial of its vaccine. One day prior, the company also announced that it had received $472 million from the US government’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support its vaccine’s development. In April, the company received $483 million from BARDA.
Moderna is not the only company racing to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Another promising candidate is being co-developed by the University of Oxford and British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. Their vaccine is expected to enter a third-phase study in the US in August. Another vaccine being developed by American pharmaceutical company Pfizer and Germany company BioNTech SE is supposed to start phase three testing some this month.
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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