Sarah Gilbert, the Oxford Professor leading the research team working towards a vaccine against the coronavirus at Oxford’s Jenner Institute, has stated that a vaccine could be ready by autumn 2020. Co-leader of the Oxford team, Professor Adrian Hill affirmed that “the aim is to have at least a million doses by around about September.”
This contrasts the consensus among experts that the vaccine could take between 12 to 18 months to develop.
The Oxford Vaccine Centre states: “The best-case scenario is that by the autumn of 2020 we could have an efficacy result from the phase III trial”, however it warns that “these best-case timeframes are highly ambitious and subject to change.”
Professor Gilbert told The Times she was “80% confident” the vaccine being trialled will be effective and successful. She continued: “I think there’s a high chance that it will work based on other things that we have done with this type of vaccine. It’s not just a hunch and as every week goes by we have more data to look at.” Similarly, Professor Hill expressed his “confidence that this vaccine should work”.
The clinical trials for the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 vaccine developed in Oxford have already begun. They have finished recruiting 510 volunteers aged between 18-55 for Phase I of clinical trials, and they aim to have trialled the vaccine on all of them by mid-May, commencing next week.
The Oxford team has already tested the vaccine successfully on animals.
Phase II aims to recruit 500 people aged 55-70, with the final phase aiming for a pool of 5,000 volunteers. Prof. Andrew Pollard claimed the Oxford Jenner Institute “should have all our volunteers recruited through all three phases of the trial over the next few months”, because of its previous experience with similar viruses. Pollard noted this process “usually takes 5 years or more.”
The Oxford team, led by Prof. Sarah Gilbert, Prof. Andrew Pollard, Prof. Teresa Lambe, Dr Sandy Douglas and Prof. Adrian Hill, started work on the vaccine in early January 2020. The Jenner Institute was selected for its previous work developing vaccines against viral diseases such as Ebola, Malaria, HIV, HPV and Hepatitis B and C.
Prof. Gilbert also emphasized the Jenner Institute’s previous work with so-called “Disease X”, which she described as a hypothetical “unknown disease that was going to come and cause a pandemic at some time in the future, and we needed to plan for it.”
She stresses the similarities between the new and progressing coronavirus vaccine and previous vaccines developed by the Jenner Institute which have already been tested and are in circulation. The Insitute’s previous research allows the team “to move faster” in the development of a vaccine, according to Gilbert.
The team was granted £2.2 million by the National Institute for Health and Research and UK Research and Innovation in March. Beyond this, Prof. Hill stated that “tens of millions” or more is being spent on their vaccine research and future manufacturing.
Yet, Hill expressed concerns over Oxford’s limited funds and means, stating “manufacturing is one of the biggest challenges if this vaccine works.”
“We’re a university, we have a very small in-house manufacturing facility that can do dozens of doses. That’s not good enough to supply the world,” Hill told the BBC World Service.
Nevertheless, Hill stated that “the aim is to have at least a million doses by around about September”, emphasizing that “a vaccine is the exit strategy for the pandemic”, whilst warning that “we are very likely to need vaccines in future years because it is unlikely we’ll be able to eradicate this virus.”
Recently, Merck Millipore, a leading science and technology company, has pledged to help Oxford’s Jenner Institute with the rapid development of a large-scale manufacturing process for their vaccine once it successfully passes the clinical trial. Gilbert stresses the need to “start vaccine scalar early” through working with other organizations like Merck Millipore.
Udit Batra, a member of the Merck Executive Board, stated: “This is an important step in treating Covid-19 and other diseases that impact global public health. This work marks a milestone in the vaccine manufacturing development journey, as clinical testing continues to advance.”
Over 70 coronavirus vaccines are being developed worldwide, according to the WHO. Prof. Gilbert’s team is the first to enter their coronavirus vaccine into clinical trials. Following them, 3 other teams have begun human testing: CanSino Biological Inc./Beijing Institute of Biotechnology, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., and Moderna Inc./National Insitute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Professor Gilbert emphasises the need for international collaboration in vaccine research. She told The Lancet: “the WHO is in the process of creating a forum for everyone who is developing COVID-19 vaccines to come together and present their plans and initial findings.
“It is essential that we all measure immunological responses to the various vaccines in the same way, to ensure comparability and generalisability of our collective findings. Work is continuing at a very fast pace, and I am in no doubt that we will see an unprecedented spirit of collaboration and cooperation, convened by WHO, as we move towards a shared global goal of COVID-19 prevention through vaccination.”
