Novavax, a U.S. based drug maker company, is set to begin the second phase of human testing for its COVID-19 vaccine in South Africa, the fifth-worst affected country in the world with 589,886 coronavirus cases and 11,982 deaths, reported Reuters.
Novavax said in a statement that the clinical trials will include 2,665 healthy adults in South Africa.
“Because South Africa is experiencing a winter surge of COVID-19 disease, this important Phase 2b clinical trial has the potential to provide an early indication of efficacy,” the company’s research chief Gregory Glenn said.
In July, the U.S. government awarded $1.6 billion to Novavax to cover testing and manufacturing of a potential vaccine for the novel coronavirus in the country.
Novavax’s trial of NVX-CoV2373 is backed by a $15 million grant from Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. It was being conducted in two separate groups, one comprising 2,665 healthy volunteers and the other, 240 HIV-positive adults. The drug maker company expects its vaccine, once approved, would be supplied to South Africa through a deal signed earlier this year with the Serum Institute of India to develop and commercialize NVX-CoV2373.
Nearly 30 vaccine candidates are currently being tested globally in human clinical trials. Novavax is planning to begin the Phase 2 portion of the vaccine’s trial in the United States and Australia in the coming months. The trial would include about 1,500 candidates. The company also aims to begin Phase III as soon as late September.
Last month, British drugmaker AstraZeneca said late-stage trials of its experimental coronavirus drug AZD1222, which is developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, are under way in Brazil and South Africa and due to start in the United States.
Last week, Russia gave a nod to the Sputnik V vaccine developed by the Moscow-based Gamaleya Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology.
