Moderna’s stock jumped nearly 15 percent the moment it announced the news. The company had just shipped a first batch of an experimental coronavirus vaccine.
The batch went to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) on Monday, according to The Wall Street Journal. Federal scientists there will study it, and if all goes well, human trials could begin as soon as April.
A record pace
New reports of COVID-19 cases and deaths arrive daily, which makes the speed stand out. Shipping a vaccine, and possibly testing it, within three months is fast by any measure. The Journal noted that NIAID took 20 months to begin testing a vaccine for SARS in the early 2000s.
NIAID Director Anthony Fauci told the paper: “Going into a Phase One trial within three months of getting the sequence is unquestionably the world indoor record.” He added, “Nothing has ever gone that fast.”
No guarantee
Speed does not settle whether the vaccine works. Most drugs explored in clinical trials fail. “You’re never sure until you’re at the end what you have,” Bruce Gellin, president of global immunization at the Sabin Vaccine Institute, told the Journal.
Results from the first human trial should be available in July or August. That is too late to help people now sick, but it could limit later outbreaks. Some officials, Fauci among them, worry that COVID-19 could turn into a seasonal outbreak like the flu.
