Covid-19: Novavax says its coronavirus vaccine was 89.3% effective in UK trial

Novavax Inc said on Thursday its coronavirus vaccine was 89.3 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19 in a trial conducted in the UK, and was nearly as effective in protecting against the more contagious variant of Covid-19 first discovered in the UK, according to a preliminary analysis.

A mid-stage trial of the vaccine in South Africa, where a potent variant of the virus is common, showed 60 per cent effectiveness among people who did not have HIV.

The news comes on the day the US reported its first cases of the South African variant.

Novavax said the UK trial, which enrolled 15,000 people aged 18 to 84, is expected to be used to apply for regulatory review in the UK, the EU and other countries. Some 27 per cent of people in the trial are over the age of 65.

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The study took place as the more highly transmissible new UK variant was circulating, and the preliminary analysis suggests the vaccine was 85.6 per cent effective against this mutation, the US company announced in a news release. It did not provide the study data.

In the UK trial, the effectiveness of the vaccine was close to that of the vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, whose two-dose regimens were about 95 per cent effective at preventing Covid-19 in clinical trials.

John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, said the data from the latest UK trial was essentially the same as that shown by Pfizer and Moderna.

“The South African variant is clearly going to be an issue, but it’s not an absolutely catastrophic event either. The key thing is to stop this variant from spreading,” Mr Moore added.

The vaccines by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have been shown in lab studies to be less effective against the South African variant.

"The 60 per cent reduced risk against Covid-19 illness in vaccinated individuals in South Africans underscores the value of this vaccine to prevent illness from the highly worrisome variant currently circulating in South Africa, and which is spreading globally," said Prof Shabir Madhi, lead investigator of the Novavax vaccine trial in South Africa.

Novavax said it started making new versions of its vaccine to protect against emerging virus variants in early January and expects to select ideal candidates for a booster in the coming days. The company said it plans to initiate clinical testing of these new vaccines in the second quarter of this year. – Reuters