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Novavax Headquarters in Rockville, Maryland
AFP via Getty Images
The first question that came to my friends’ minds was whether I had really thought about the possible dangers. Two of them, more focused on world issues, asked at least if I was paid.
It was a month ago, a few days before I went to the Royal Free Hospital in London to get vaccinated for the first time as a volunteer in the phase 3 trial of a coronavirus vaccine. Now the same friends seem to be wondering if I picked the right horse, but they dare not ask me for fear of hurting my feelings.
The vaccine I am trying is developed by Novavax NVAX,
an American biotech company, and it was the second to be tested in an advanced stage trial in the UK, after one produced by the collaboration of the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca AZN,
A third, by Johnson & Johnson JNJ,
will soon start advanced stage testing in the UK as well.
But all the news in recent weeks has been about the three vaccines that had achieved 90% or more efficacy in their late stage trial. No news from Novavax, which is natural as its large-scale trial started later than the others. So the candidate that I consider “my” vaccine, seems to be fourth at best …
In reality, this is all ridiculous. The answers to all of my friends’ concerns are all negative – no, I never considered it risky, and no, of course, I don’t get paid. I just received my second photo a few days ago. And as any expert would tell you, it makes a lot of sense that Novavax and the dozens of other vaccine candidates continue with the trials – even though three more vaccines have already shown results, which was hoped for but not expected in a few months. when the world faced the calamity of the first wave of coronavirus.
It’s not that I want to cheer my team on against all odds as the supporters stay with their home football team for better or for worse. But ever since I got a phone call asking me to confirm the decision I made at the start of the summer to join the voluntary vaccine registry for the NHS, the UK health service, I have of course been interested. , not only to the vaccine, but also to the fate of the American biotechnology which develops it.
So I know that Novavax is based in Maryland, and that I should – idiot me – have bought its shares in January instead of receiving its vaccine in October: the stock is up 2200% since the start of the year (no, I didn’t throw an extra 0 here. In other words, the share price was multiplied by 23). At least no outsider there. And that’s for a company that has yet to bring an actual vaccine to the market.
Pierre Briancon
The general reason for the lack of anxiety or “fear of danger”, as my friends would say, about inoculating an unknown substance, is that you are accompanied most of the time by doctors and nurses in the area. NHS who are handling the trial. Everything is explained, options are offered (leave as soon as you feel like it without having to give a reason) test kits are distributed in case of symptoms, and an app is there to keep a daily diary if they do.
Then there is a monthly newsletter on the ‘vaccine registry’, the latest of which insisted it made sense to keep researching and trying: Divya Chadha Manek, UK Task Force Clinical Trials Manager on vaccines, explained to me (and a few thousand others) first) that we will need many vaccines both in the world and in the UK. Second, and more importantly, not all vaccines will be considered appropriate for everyone. “Basically we can’t put all of our eggs in one basket,” Divya wrote.
Furthermore, it is still, quite literally, a process of trial and error. Three vaccines that seem to have proven effective – from Pfizer PFE,
the American pharmaceutical group, biotech Moderna MRNA,
and AstraZeneca / University of Oxford. But questions began to be raised about the process and implementation of AstraZeneca’s Phase 3 trial just days after the release of its preliminary results. At the very least, that could mean that the road to an effective vaccine may be longer and bumpier than hoped in the optimism of the past two weeks.
So I am still in favor of Novavax, which will take a few more months to tell us about the outcome of the trial, and has just expanded its pool of volunteers in the UK from 10,000 to 15,000. Although I cannot – not even being vaccinated at all: half of us have been injected with a placebo, an inactive saline solution that looks like a dose of vaccine that will have no effect on our immune system. This is a “double blind” trial where even the doctors and nurses who follow us do not know whether we have received the vaccine or not.
So I wonder, trying not to become a hypochondriac who mistakes the slightest sign of discomfort for possible symptoms. Does my left arm hurt after the second blow? Is it a severe headache? And why did I just cough?
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