COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network seeking volunteers for Covid-19 vaccine clinical trials
The COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network has launched with a website for volunteers to join the roster of people to be considered when the first trials begin this month.
Early clinical trials, some of which have reported encouraging results, assess the right dose of the vaccine and monitor for any safety concerns in dozens or a few hundred patients. But the ultimate test of these vaccines will be large trials designed to test whether they are effective at preventing or reducing the severity of disease.
The first late-stage vaccine trial, in which 30,000 people will be randomly assigned to receive either an experimental vaccine made by the biotechnology company Moderna or a placebo, is expected to begin in the second half of July. There are expected to be at least five such large vaccine trials conducted through the network over the coming months - as well as trials of other preventive measures, such as monoclonal antibody drugs.
"This is what we do for a living and have done for a living," said Larry Corey, a virologist and past president of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, who is co-leading the trial network.
The White House's "Operation Warp Speed" program hopes to simultaneously confirm a vaccine's efficacy while preparing millions of doses. On Tuesday, the federal government awarded a $1.6 billion contract to the company Novavax to test and manufacture 100 million doses of its potential vaccine by January 2021.
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