A COMPARISON OF NEUTRALIZATION TITERS AND PROTECTION DATA ACROSS CANDIDATES AND AGE GROUPS

A pressing question about COVID-19 vaccines is how well they will perform in the elderly, who are at higher risk for severe disease. Wednesday’s report of strong efficacy in subjects over 65 given Pfizer and BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine could portend good news for several of the next candidates.

In early-stage clinical trials, at least four other vaccines produced neutralizing antibody levels in non-elderly adults that were in line with those of BNT162b2 from Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ:BNTX), and for the most part, the vaccines’ titers fell less with age than BNT162b2.

Only Ad5-nCoV from CanSino Biologics Inc. (HKEX:6185; Shanghai:688185) produced somewhat lower neutralization titers that fell farther with age than BNT162b2 in a live virus assay.

Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) announced Monday that mRNA-1273 yielded a 94.5% protection rate at an interim analysis of a Phase III trial; the data were not broken down by age. Additional Phase III data are expected shortly.

AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NASDAQ:AZN) reported Thursday neutralization titers across age groups from a Phase II trial of AZD1222; the company expects Phase III data by year-end, if not sooner.

From: https://www.biocentury.com/article/632098/the-first-covid-19-vaccine-data-in-the-elderly-may-bode-well-for-the-next-candidates-data-byte?tag=cov19count&return_feed=%2Fcoronavirus