Coronavirus: US awards $1.6bn to Novavax for vaccine

Final testing phase for candidate planned for July

Workers in personal protective equipment are seen alongside police patrols in Melbourne, Australia. Nine public housing towers are placed under lockdown, with a stay-at-home order announced for the whole city starting from Wednesday. Getty Images

A woman looks out a window from a locked-down public housing tower in Melbourne. AP Photo

People walk along the street before entering the area where stores are open, during the gradual reopening of commercial activities in in Mexico City. Reuters

Grade 7 pupils of the Sitoromo Junior Secondary School in Sterkspruit, South Africa, sit in their classroom as a cook pours milk into a steaming dish of maize porridge. The school reopened only for Grade 7 pupils after being shut for two weeks because of a Covid-19 case found among its staff. AFP

Serbian army soldiers prepare a makeshift field hospital inside the Belgrade Arena. AFP

Workers in personal protective equipment in Melbourne, Australia. Getty Images

People wearing face masks stand outside a high school as their wards write the annual national college entrance exam, which had been postponed by a month, in Beijing, China. Reuters

A visitor wearing a face mask takes a selfie in front of Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece "Mona Lisa" at the Louvre Museum in Paris, on the museum's reopening day. AFP

Firefighters prepare to distribute food at a public housing tower in Melbourne, Australia. Reuters

People eat lunch at a restaurant with plastic dividers between tables, as a preventative measure amid the Covid-19 pandemic in Sao Paulo, Brazil. AP Photo

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A health worker takes a nasal swab of a person for a Covid-19 test at a hospital in New Delhi, India. AP Photo

The US on Tuesday announced it was providing $1.6 billion in funding for the development and manufacture of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate produced by biotech firm Novavax, the largest amount awarded under Operation Warp Speed.

Separately, the US said it was providing $450 million (Dh1.65 billion) to Regeneron for its experimental Covid-19 treatment and prophylaxis, a combination of two antibodies.

Under the terms of its agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services and Department of Defence, Novavax agrees to deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine, potentially by the end of the year.

“We are honoured to partner with Operation Warp Speed to move our vaccine candidate forward with extraordinary urgency in the quest to provide vital protection to our nation’s population,” said Stanley Erck, the company’s president and chief executive.

The final stage Phase 3 trial of its vaccine, called NVX-CoV2373, is due to take place this autumn.

The Maryland-based company uses insect cells to grow synthesised pieces of the “spike protein” the virus uses to invade cells and trigger an immune system response.

It also uses an adjuvant, a compound that boosts the production of neutralising antibodies.

In spring, the company said it had proven the efficacy of a seasonal flu vaccine it had developed using similar technology.

The amount awarded to Novavax by the US is higher than the $1.2 billion given to the Oxford University vaccine being developed by AstraZeneca.

Under Operation Warp Speed, the US aims to deliver millions of doses of safe and effective vaccines for Covid-19 in 2021.

Also on Tuesday, the US said it was giving Regeneron, based in New York State, $450 million to boost production of its Covid-19 antibody.

The company, which announced on Monday it was entering late-stage human trials, estimates that it could have between 70,000 and 300,000 treatment doses, with the first available by late summer.

The drug, called REGN-COV2, is a combination of two antibodies that block the coronavirus’s spike protein.

Regeneron scientists evaluated thousands of antibodies harvested from genetically modified mice with human immune systems and from humans, identifying the two they found to be most potent, while not competing against each other.

The company uses a multi-antibody strategy to decrease the chances that the virus will mutate to evade the blocking action of a single antibody, an approach it detailed in a recent study in Science.

Last year, a triple antibody cocktail developed by Regeneron was shown to be effective against the Ebola virus.