saRNA COVID-19 Vaccine Clinical Trial

A vaccine is critical to tackling coronavirus. The clinical and scientific communities are increasingly of the view that whilst isolation, social distancing and testing can get the world through the current coronavirus problem, the only long-term solution to beating the disease will be finding a vaccine. To find a successful vaccine will take the collective effort of government, academia, industry and healthcare. We know that traditionally vaccine development can take years and we also know more fail than succeed. To accelerate development, government will have a key role to play in derisking projects, by funding their early stage R&D and clinical trialling, and in corralling industry to make sure we have the manufacturing capacity and effective supply chains to produce vaccines at scale, quickly. This is likely to mean manufacturing at risk, i.e. investing in facilities now and producing millions of doses of vaccines ready for deployment, which may turn out not to work. Government has already taken action to bring together all those working on a vaccine in the UK. A Vaccines Taskforce has been set up reporting to the BEIS and DHSC Secretaries of State, as well as to Sir Patrick Vallance and Jonathan Van Tam. The taskforce is bringing together government, industry, academics, funders, regulators, logistics and finance to make rapid decisions that will accelerate progress on the development of a Covid-19 vaccine and vaccinate the right proportion of the population as soon as possible after a vaccine is available. For the UK to be in a position to vaccinate the right proportion of the population as soon as possible after a vaccine is available, we need to: ? Support discovery, development and scale up in the UK; ? Prepare the UK to offer itself as an expert clinical testing site and possible manufacturing site, proactively approaching companies such as Moderna which are at the forefront of vaccine development; ? Review regulations to facilitate rapid, well supervised trials; ? Develop funding and operational plan for procurement and delivery of vaccines and; ? Build on the UK s R&D expertise to support the international effort. On the first of those priorities, there are 41 leading vaccine candidates in the world, of which the UK is home to two: at Oxford University and at Imperial College. A team at Imperial College London, led by Robin Shattock, have been developing a saRNA vaccine for COVID-19, that aims to cut half a billion off development costs, and years from the traditional cycle, potentially allowing the UK to begin immunisation in late 2020. The outlined plan assumes that vaccine production will be started at risk, based on early positive signs from the Phase 2 clinical trials. This is necessary in order to move into immunising the population ahead of the coming winter.