Research Roundup: COVID-19 vaccine packaging, trials, and asymptomatic spread

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email.Dexamethasone, an inexpensive, decades-old drug is showing promise for treating COVID-19, per unpublished, preliminary results from a study called Recovery that was funded by the United Kingdom. The preliminary results indicated that the drug reduced the risk of death for patients on ventilators by 35 percent, those receiving oxygen by 20 percent, and overall mortality by 17 percent. Immediately following the results, the United Kingdom granted approval for use of the drug to treat COVID-19. According to FiercePharma, UK officials have enough dexamethasone stockpiled to treat 200,000 patients.  A recent study lends support to anecdotal evidence that blood type and genetics may be linked to worse outcomes from COVID-19 illness. Last Wednesday, a team of European researchers published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine indicating that people with type A blood have a 45 percent higher risk of catching COVID-19 and sliding into respiratory failure and people with type O blood have a 35 percent lower risk of developing respiratory failure compared to people with other blood types. Scientists are still unsure why blood type might be correlated with COVID-19 outcomes, but a nascent hypothesis is that it could be linked to blood clotting risk. The researchers also found that a cluster of genes are associated with higher risk of developing severe COVID-19 by 77 percent.A project led by researchers from Scripps Research, GHTC member IAVI, and the University of California San Diego School of Medicine published research in Science detailing a set of antibodies discovered in recovered COVID-19 patients that provide powerful protection against SARS-CoV-2. In theory, the antibodies could be given to patients who are just developing the illness to prevent progression to severe disease and to protect people who are at higher risk for contracting COVID-19. To discover the antibodies, the scientists isolated more than 1,000 distinct antibody-producing immune cells, obtained genetic sequences from these cells to produce more antibodies, and then tested the antibodies’ effectiveness against blocking the virus in vitro. The researchers discovered several antibodies that, even in small quantities, could block the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The work was funded by the US National Institutes of Health, IAVI, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, among others.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign-up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. As part of Operation Warp Speed, the Trump Administration has selected five top COVID-19 vaccine candidates to receive priority government support. The candidates include mRNA-1273 (Moderna and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), AZD-1222 (AstraZeneca and Oxford University), Ad26 SARS-Cov-2 (Johnson & Johnson), and candidates from Merck/IAVI and Pfizer. The Merck/IAVI and Pfizer candidates have not yet received federal funding, but as selected companies, they will receive access to government support to advance their programs. The mRNA-1273 and AZD-1222 candidates are already in phase 2 clinical trials and are expected to reach phase 3 in July. Officials anticipate that each vaccine will be tested on 30,000 individuals in phase 3 trials, some of which may take place outside the United States. An official announcement about the selection of these five companies is expected from Operation Warp Speed in the next few weeks.Convalescent plasma, sourced from patients who have recovered from COVID-19, did not demonstrate significant effectiveness as a treatment in the first randomized clinical trial evaluating its use. The Wuhan-based trial, however, fell short of its target recruitment because of containment of the outbreak and only enrolled 103 of the 200 patients needed to demonstrate a clinically meaningful result. In the same journal, Dr. Arturo Casadevall of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health said that, though there was no significant improvement, the study gave “potentially hopeful signals” and that convalescent plasma should be tested in combination with antiviral drugs.The World Health Organization (WHO) launched at the end of May the COVID-19 Technology Access Pool, or C-TAP, a global project to share intellectual property and speed the research, development, and deployment of new vaccines, tests, treatments, and other health tools for COVID-19. The voluntary pool was initiated by Costa Rica and is supported mostly by low and middle-income countries and only a few high-income countries. Notably, many countries that are leading the research race for new tools, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Switzerland, have not supported C-TAP. Meanwhile, some leaders from the pharmaceutical industry have dismissed the project while other groups, such as the Médecins Sans Frontières’ Access Campaign, have given praise.