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Today, the company said that Novavax’s shot-to-shot COVID-19 vaccine is 90% effective against the disease.
Novavax vaccines are a different type of vaccine than the one already available: It’s a protein-based vaccine that directly delivers bits of the coronavirus’ spike protein, which the body then makes antibodies against.
Novavax tested its vaccine on 29,960 people across the United States and Mexico who were randomly assigned to get the vaccine or a placebo injection. There were 77 cases of COVID-19 in the study: 14 in the people who received the vaccine, and 63 in the placebo group. All 14 cases in the vaccine group were mild. In the placebo group, ten cases were moderate and four severe, indicating that the shots protect against more serious illnesses.
The experiment was conducted when the alpha coronavirus variant, first identified in the United Kingdom, was circulating in the United States. The results confirm that vaccines protect against this type of virus.
The results are similar to those obtained from the clinical trial conducted by Novavax in the UK, which found the shots were 89 per cent effective. That experiment was also conducted at a time when the alpha variant was widespread.
The United States has already authorized three COVID-19 vaccines and obtained enough of those vaccines to vaccinate the entire population of the United States. However, Novavax says it plans to present its vaccine to regulators in the United States and around the world by this fall. By this point, the US regulatory agency, the Food and Drug Administration, may have already given full approval to the Pfizer/BioNTech or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.
If any vaccines are approved by the FDA, Novavax may not be able to apply for emergency authorization faster than the other three vaccines have passed — the process is technically open only if there are no products that are fully approved to treat a condition. However, because Novavax was already in discussions with the Food and Drug Administration, it may still be able to go down this path, Stanley Erk, the company’s CEO, told the New York Times.
Novavax had manufacturing problems this spring that forced it to delay estimates of when it could apply for regulatory clearance and provide vaccines. The company entered into an agreement with the COVAX Initiative, which provides vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, for 1.1 billion doses.
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