How COVID-19 is evolving the R&D landscape

As the world waits for a pan­dem­ic exit strat­e­gy, we know that the organ­i­sa­tions research­ing and devel­op­ing med­i­cines and vac­cines are our best hope for beat­ing coro­n­avirus.

As new vac­cines become a real­i­ty, we are see­ing sci­en­tif­ic part­ner­ships that were forged in the spring lead­ing us out of the pan­dem­ic. And among them is a home-grown UK vac­cine from AstraZeneca and Oxford Uni­ver­si­ty.

More than 200 glob­al research teams are work­ing on vac­cines. Our indus­try is involved in over two thirds of these projects. Eleven are in phase‑3 clin­i­cal tri­als, where the vac­cine is test­ed on thou­sands of vol­un­teers. One, Pfiz­er-BioN­Tech, has already been approved for use by the UK reg­u­la­tor.  

The devel­op­ment is hap­pen­ing in under 12 months, main­tain­ing the same safe­ty and effi­ca­cy stan­dards. A com­bi­na­tion of intense glob­al focus and exper­tise, with phas­es of devel­op­ment and reg­u­la­tion car­ried out simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, is mak­ing this a real­i­ty. 

Peo­ple talk about unprece­dent­ed times. Over the past ten months, we’ve seen unprece­dent­ed ways of work­ing. Com­pa­nies are col­lab­o­rat­ing with each oth­er, with acad­e­mia and glob­al health sys­tems, and shar­ing data.

Collaboration key to vaccine success

Fif­teen glob­al com­pa­nies are cen­tral to the Gates Foundation’s COVID-19 Ther­a­peu­tics Accel­er­a­tor, a pub­lic-pri­vate ini­tia­tive look­ing for treat­ments. To accel­er­ate devel­op­ment, the com­pa­nies involved agreed to share data of mol­e­c­u­lar com­pounds from pro­pri­etary libraries. 

As Julie Kim, pres­i­dent of Plas­ma-Derived Ther­a­pies at Take­da said, “unprece­dent­ed times call for bold moves.”

Take­da is one of the found­ing com­pa­nies of the CoVIg-19 Plas­ma Alliance, work­ing togeth­er on an inves­ti­ga­tion­al prod­uct made from con­va­les­cent plas­ma, unbrand­ed by any of the par­tic­i­pat­ing com­pa­nies, and now being eval­u­at­ed as part of a glob­al phase‑3 clin­i­cal tri­al.

Sev­en­teen phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies are involved in suc­cess­ful pro­pos­als fund­ed by the EU’s COVID-19 Inno­v­a­tive Med­i­cines Ini­tia­tive, anoth­er pub­lic-pri­vate con­sor­tium demon­strat­ing com­mit­ment to open data-shar­ing for COVID treat­ments and diag­nos­tics.

Com­pa­nies have pledged to bring vac­cines to peo­ple wher­ev­er they are in the world.  John­son & John­son is study­ing a lead vac­cine can­di­date with plans to bring an afford­able vac­cine to the pub­lic on a not-for-prof­it basis for emer­gency pan­dem­ic use.

Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech have worked at unprece­dent­ed speed to devel­op, test and man­u­fac­ture a poten­tial first-in-class mRNA-based vac­cine. 

The UK’s GSK and France’s Sanofi com­bined their tech­no­log­i­cal and man­u­fac­tur­ing capa­bil­i­ty to devel­op a vac­cine. The two com­pa­nies have pledged to work with health author­i­ties and gov­ern­ments around the world to ensure time­ly and afford­able access.

GSK is mak­ing its adju­vant tech avail­able to sci­en­tists work­ing on can­di­date vac­cines. Adju­vants are of par­tic­u­lar impor­tance in a pan­dem­ic since they may reduce the amount of vac­cine pro­tein required per dose, allow­ing more dos­es to be pro­duced, pro­tect­ing more peo­ple.

The need to get the public on-board

The swift gov­ern­ment pri­ori­ti­sa­tion and approval for Urgent Pub­lic Health Research stud­ies is impor­tant.

It is these part­ner­ships that will help us beat COVID-19 and the lessons we learn can be used in oth­er areas of health­care.

Despite the World Health Orga­ni­za­tion declar­ing that only clean water beats vac­cines in reduc­ing the bur­den of infec­tious dis­eases, research indi­cates vac­cine hes­i­tan­cy remains an issue world­wide.

As vac­cines are giv­en to mil­lions, they must meet the high­est safe­ty stan­dards or com­pa­nies won’t progress them and reg­u­la­tors won’t approve them.

Amid the mis­in­for­ma­tion about COVID-19 vac­cines, we need a col­lec­tive effort to make sure the pub­lic con­tin­ue to have con­fi­dence in them. 

Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies have a role to tell their sto­ry. If we can help peo­ple under­stand the val­ue of vac­cines, we stand a much bet­ter chance of beat­ing the virus.

Fol­low the Asso­ci­a­tion of the British Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Industry’s cam­paign #Valu­ing­Vac­cines www.valuingvaccines.org.uk

Writ­ten by Richard Tor­bett, Chief exec­u­tive, Asso­ci­a­tion of the British Phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal Indus­try