Biotech company Novavax said on Thursday that its coronavirus vaccine was more than 89% effective in protecting against Covid-19 in its phase three clinical trial conducted in the United Kingdom.
The results were based on 62 confirmed Covid-19 infections among the 15,000 study participants. The company said 56 cases were seen in the placebo group versus six cases seen in the group that received the vaccine. That resulted in an estimated vaccine efficacy of 89.3%, it said.
The company’s stock was up more than 23% during out-of-hours trading.
With the results, the company “has the potential to play a significant role in solving this global public health crisis,” Stanley Erck, Novavax CEO, said in a statement. “We look forward to continuing to work with our partners, staff, researchers and regulators around the world to make the vaccine available as soon as possible.”
The study also found that the vaccine was found to be 85.6% effective against the British variant, also known as B.1.1.7. A separate phase two study in South Africa showed that the vaccine is nowhere near as effective against a new species plaguing that country.
The injection was still considered effective in protecting against the virus, but with an efficacy rate of only 49.4% of the 44 Covid-19 cases in South Africa, where 90% of the cases contain the alarming new variant, said Company.
As a result of its lower effectiveness against the species in South Africa, Novavax said it plans to choose a modified version of the vaccine to better protect against the new species “in the coming days.” It plans to test the modified vaccine in the second quarter of this year.
Novavax is one of several companies developing a vaccine to fight the virus, which has infected more than 101 million people worldwide and killed at least 2.2 million as of Thursday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. So far only two vaccines – from Pfizer and Moderna – have been approved for use in the US.
In July, as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, the U.S. government announced that it would pay Novavax $ 1.6 billion to develop and manufacture the potential vaccine, with a target of 100 million doses to be delivered by early 2021.
It is unclear whether Thursday’s data will be enough for Novavax to obtain an emergency use permit from the Food and Drug Administration that allows distribution in the US. The company began a late trial with 30,000 people in the US and Mexico. December.
The Novavax vaccine contains synthesized pieces of the surface protein that the coronavirus uses to infect humans. The company said the vaccine was well tolerated, adding that “serious, serious, and medically induced side effects occurred at low levels and were balanced between vaccine and placebo groups.”
In August, the company said the data from the phase 1 study showed that the vaccine generated a promising immune response. Participants received two doses of the potential vaccine by intramuscular injection approximately 21 days apart. Novavax also said the vaccine was well tolerated with no serious side effects reported.