JUST weeks into the rollout of vaccines to combat Covid-19, researchers are shifting their focus to a new class of potential shots to take on the threat posed by fast-spreading mutations.
Dangerous coronavirus variants identified in Africa, Europe and South America are carpeting the globe, pushing scientists in the U.K. and elsewhere to target multiple versions of the pathogen in a single shot and perhaps head off more lethal foes that may emerge.
“We cannot be complacent that we’ve got the vaccines we need and it’s just a matter of time to ending the pandemic—it’s not,” said Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, which has worked to accelerate development of Covid inoculations. “We’re in a race with the virus and we’ve got to get ahead of it.”
The U.K. government last week announced a pact with CureVac to tackle variants, pairing artificial intelligence to predict future mutations with messenger RNA technology that can rapidly generate new vaccines.
Meanwhile, countries across the European Union, which has lagged the U.S. and U.K. in immunizations, have raised questions about the bloc’s strategy on mutants.
At a meeting of ambassadors Wednesday, countries including Malta and Germany urged the European Commission to ensure contracts with manufacturers cover sufficient batches if booster shots are needed, according to a cable seen by Bloomberg.
Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson have said they’re starting work on developing booster shots or other efforts to bolster their vaccines. AstraZeneca and partner University of Oxford aim to have a tweaked version tailored to new variants available by fall.
One problem drugmakers confront in the quest for a single shot that covers different strains is that they don’t yet know which ones will be the most prevalent in the months to come, according to Andrew Pollard, the lead investigator on the Oxford trials.
“We know today which ones you would choose, but the virus is likely to continue to evolve under pressure from human immunity and so that could change over time,” he said.
For years, multivalent flu vaccines targeting three or four versions of the pathogen have provided protection against multiple strains circling the globe. Glaxo and CureVac plan to rely on mRNA technology to develop a product that addresses multiple variants in one Covid vaccine. If the work is successful, a vaccine could be ready next year.
Some scientists, including a team at the University of Cambridge, are exploring vaccines that could protect against multiple coronaviruses to prepare for future pandemics.
Backed by U.K. funding, the Cambridge group is developing technology that could be plugged into any platform to fight multiple variants and other coronaviruses, such as Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS. They’re planning to start human trials in the spring.
As the work progresses, the pressure is rising. New strains could make it more difficult to achieve a sufficient level of immunity needed to get control of the virus.—James Paton and Suzi Ring.
BLOOMBERG
