Thought of the Day - September 20 2021 - What's In A Name?

First it was the WHO moving away from the colloquial names for the SARS-CoV-2 variants ( Thought of the Day - June 4 2021 - Announcement from the WHO ). They said at the time it was to remove the stigma of a country being associated with the strains - humm, you notice they never came up with a name for the "original" China-virus Wuhan strain.

Anyway, now that the pharma companies are going for full approval for their vaccines (the emergency use approvals expired in Canada on September 16th) they are also taking the opportunity to introduce Canada to their new brand names ( Thought of the Day - September 1 2021 - Pfizer US FDA Approval ).

Why? Well, it is pretty obvious, they want to remove the stigma of the company being associated with the vaccines. If things go well, not a problem, but if issues happen the last thing you want is the product in question being synonymous with the parent company. Moreover, it gives them space to brand any yet-to-be-released SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 follow-on products.

So what are the new names?

Well, as we have already talked about, Pfizer/BioNTek is now being called Comirnaty (had to look it up again as I still don't know how to say it) which is approved in Canada for 12 and up.

The Moderna vaccine, which was originally titled mRNA-1273 during trials, will go by SpikeVax and is approved in Canada for 12 and up. Not bad. Almost as good as Sputnik V.

The Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been a public relations nightmare, will be named Vaxzevria (I guess this is better than AZD1222). It is approved in Canada for 18 and up.

It looks like Canada has sided with Europe and has not granted approval for this product to be manufactured under license in India (also known as COVIShield.)

The Janssen/Johnson & Johnson product has not been officially launched under a new name as it has not received full approval in Canada, and for that matter has not received full approval in the US or the EU either.

And what about the other three for which Canada holds contracts: Medicago, Novavax and Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline?

• Medicago - they are still in Phase II/III trials, looking to have results sometime in Q2 2022.

• Novavax - although this was to be available by the end of the year, they are still struggling with Phase III trials. Perhaps the product is not living up to its, Prevent-19, name after all.

• Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline - they are a long way away from finalizing a name. Their trials are now scheduled to run until 2023.

Cheers

Cliff