Coronavirus: AstraZeneca and Spuntnik V are looking for a combination …

The British Pharmacist AstraZeneca confirmed on Friday that it will begin “soon” to investigate the association of its Covid-19 vaccine with the Russian preparation, Sputnik V, in order to increase its effectiveness.

“We Announce Clinical Trial Program to Evaluate Safety and Immunogenicity of the combination ASD1222, developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, and Sputnik V, developed by the research institute Gamaleya “, reported AstraZeneca in a press release, in which it specified that The tests will be carried out in individuals over 18 years of age.

He also stressed that “being able to combine different vaccines against Covid-19 could be useful for better protection and / or improve accessibility “. In this sense, he stressed that it is “important to explore different combinations to help make vaccination programs more flexible, allowing scientists more choice in their administration”, as well as to improve “the long-term immunity “. .

AstraZeneca also admitted that “it is clear that to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic more than one vaccine will be needed” and recalled that the UK government recently announced that it will start a clinical trial in which adenoviral vaccines will be combined with others with mRNA technology.

The lab confirmed that “soon it will begin to thxplore with the Russian Research Institute Gamaleya to understand whether two adenovirus vaccines can be successful when combined“. “Evaluating different types of Covid-19 combination vaccines could help unlock synergies in protection and improve accessibility of vaccines and could provide an additional approach to help overcome this deadly virus,” the pharmaceutical company said.

Scientists who developed the Russian preparation Sputnik V last month urged AstraZeneca to test the combination which they believe could “improve the effectiveness” of the drug. “If (AstraZeneca) is conducting a new clinical trial, we suggest testing a combination regimen of AZ injection with injection of the human adenoviral vector #SputnikV to increase efficacy,” Russian experts told the era via Twitter.

In a statement issued on Friday, the Russian sovereign wealth fund, involved in the development of the vaccine, reported: “AstraZeneca has accepted the proposal (…) to use one of the two vectors of the Sputnik V vaccine in clinical trials complementary. of its own vaccine, which will start before the end of the year ”.

Russia said its vaccine was 95% effective and was currently in phase 3 clinical trials in around 40,000 volunteers. The country started vaccinating part of its population last week. Meanwhile, AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have announced that their vaccine is 70% effective on average.