Kinkini Gupta
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Written By: Kinkini Gupta | Updated : June 6, 2022 6:01 PM IST
SII And Novavax To Manufacture A New Vaccine Against Omicron
A new concern plaguing everyone around the world was the efficiency of these vaccines against the Omicron variant. While the some researchers suggest that a booster dose of the existing COVID-19 vaccine could be effective against Omicron, it does not establish how effective it would be. Experts on the other hand are already on their way to manufacture a new vaccine that would work against the current COVID-19 variant, Omicron.
The Serum Institute of India (SII) has announced its collaboration with US partner Novavax to produce an Omicron variant-based vaccine for COVID-19. This vaccine will be different from the original shot that was developed by the United States major using the Wuhan strain of the Sars-CoV-2 virus. They will be manufacturing the trial batches of this vaccine. Next step will be to conduct the tests of these batches to verify their effectiveness. This action has been approved by the Indian drug regulators office.
Though the vaccine for the Sars-CoV-2 strain already exists, it is not effective against the Omicron, which is currently the dominant strain that has accelerated the spread of COVID-19 in the world.
Novavax is planning two types of Omicron vaccines, a monovalent and a bivalent option. These are expected to be ready for clinical trials later this month. Erck said it is advancing its COVID-19 influenza combination vaccine through a phase 1 and 2 trial with the goal to advance this candidate into a phase 2 trial before the end of this year.
Novavax's Omicron specific vaccine is called NVX-CoV2515 and this uses the Omicron BA.1 strain. The company has said it induces superior antibody responses against the Omicron variant compared to its Wuhan prototype vaccine NVX-CoV2373. There is also a bivalent vaccine containing both NVX-CoV2515 and NVX-CoV2373.
