Thought of the Day - May 13 - Vaccine Trials are Coming

The National Research Council (NRC) announced yesterday a candidate vaccine referred to as Ad5-nCoV. The vaccine candidate received Chinese regulatory approval allowing CanSino Biologics to start human clinical trials in China. It is one of only a handful approved for initial safety testing in humans, and the first to begin Phase II human clinical trials.

The new COVID-19 vaccine is produced using cell lines that were designed and developed at the NRC. The vaccine candidate is subject to approval by Health Canada before trials can start in Canada. However this collaboration allows NRC to scale-up the production process; the Federal Government has already announced $44 million in funding to support upgrades to NRC's facilities in Montréal to ensure readiness for Canadian manufacturing of potential vaccine candidates.

While there are still many hurdles (only about 10% of Phase II candidates are successful), and many, many months to go, at least there are promising signs.

Cheers

Cliff