Vaccine designers take first shots at COVID 19.
The race to develop a vaccine against the novel coronavirus is unprecedented in speed, scale, and scope. Two companies already have launched clinical trials, one in the United States, the other in China. According to the World Health Organization, 54 other vaccine "candidates" are in the works by researchers from academia, biotechs, big pharma, and the military. One effort, by Johnson Johnson, potentially has $1 billion in backing, including half from the U.S. government. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations is financing eight other projects and may invest up to $2 billion itself. The vaccines are being made with both old and new technologies; the "platforms" include inactivated and attenuated viruses, protein subunits, harmless viral vectors, messenger RNA, DNA, and viruslike particles. Many researchers are optimistic that the scientific hurdles are not that high, noting that there9s durable immunity seen in humans infected with closely related coronaviruses, as well as success in vaccine studies in animal models against those diseases. If several vaccines prove their worth which will take at least 1 year in an ideal world that will also mean there is a greater supply, and there9s little question that the demand will be exceedingly high.
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