AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine shows promise in older people, trial results by Christmas

LONDON (Reuters) – The potential COVID-19 vaccine from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford has produced a strong immune response in the elderly, data showed on Thursday, researchers planning to release test results from advanced stage by Christmas.

The data, reported in part last month but published in full in the medical journal The Lancet on Thursday, suggests that people over the age of 70, who are at higher risk of serious illness and death from COVID-19, could develop robust immunity.

“The robust antibody and T cell responses seen in the elderly in our study are encouraging,” said Maheshi Ramasamy, consultant and co-principal investigator at the Oxford Vaccine Group.

“We hope this means our vaccine will help protect some of society’s most vulnerable people, but more research is needed before we can be sure.”

Advanced stage, or phase III, trials are underway to confirm the results, the researchers said, and to test whether the vaccine protects against SARS-CoV-2 infection in a wide range of people, including including people with underlying health conditions.

The results of these trials should definitely be known by Christmas, said Oxford Vaccine Group Director Andrew Pollard, adding that it was too early to know if and how well the vaccine is working to prevent COVID disease. 19.

“We’re still waiting to get to the point where we can do the analysis to just see how well the vaccine can protect people, and we’re getting closer and closer to that,” he told reporters.

“We are optimistic that we can do this before Christmas, and we will obviously be sharing that with you as soon as possible at this point.”

The Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine candidate, called AZD1222 or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, had been among the pioneers in global efforts to develop vaccines to protect against infection with the novel coronavirus, or SARS-CoV-2.

But rival drugmakers Pfizer Inc PFE.N, BioNTech 22UAy.F and Moderna Inc MRNA.O have made progress over the past 10 days, releasing data from advanced COVID-19 vaccine trials that show more than 90% efficacy.

“We are not in a hurry. Us and it’s not a competition with other developers, ”said Pollard of Oxford, adding that AstraZeneca would publish efficacy data before it is published in an academic journal.

The University of Oxford has set a target of 53 infections to begin interim analysis of the results of its late stage trials, although “many cases” in its trial arms in Britain, Africa South and Brazil mean the exact number of reported infections may differ.

Unlike Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna injections, which both use a new technology known as messenger RNA (mRNA), AstraZeneca is a viral vector vaccine made from a weakened version of a common cold virus. found in chimpanzees.

The Phase II trial reported in The Lancet involved a total of 560 healthy volunteers, including 160 aged 18 to 55, 160 aged 56 to 69, and 240 aged 70 or older.

The volunteers received two doses of the vaccine or a placebo, and no serious side effects related to the AZD1222 vaccine were reported, the researchers said.

AstraZeneca AZN.L has signed several supply and manufacturing agreements with companies and governments around the world.