Health experts advise coordinated strategy to accelerate multiple COVID-19 vaccine candidates

While many vaccine and treatment prospects have been put forward for dealing with COVID-19, health experts from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have advised in a new Science-published paper that a collaborative strategy for testing, scale-up, and distribution of candidates is essential.

The pandemic continues to spread, and to successfully contain the virus that causes it — SARS-CoV-2 — the authors noted that more than one effective vaccine approach would likely be required. The authors included NIH Director Francis Collins, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci, Dr. Lawrence Corey, a professor in the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Division at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Dr. John Mascola, director of NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center. They laid out an approach for research and development that they believe would spur essential data from multiple subjects simultaneously.

This was all predicated on the notion that no single vaccine or platform is likely to meet global needs. Significant manufacturing capacity and funding for biomanufacturing infrastructure will be necessary. Further, there are a variety of potential hurdles in the delivery of vaccines, from cost to distribution systems to cold chain requirements, which need to be addressed. Neither public nor private entities could likely tackle this on their own, either.

The experts proposed approaches to harmonize clinical testing of multiple vaccine products, such as using standard clinical trial designs, clinical endpoints, standardized immune assays, and a common Data Safety and Monitoring Board. Continued promotion of entities like the Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) public-private partnership will be crucial.