Pharma chiefs expect coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months
The pharmaceutical industry expects it will require 12 to 18 months to roll out a coronavirus vaccine, executives said Thursday, because they jointly pledged to create it available worldwide predicated on need.
Bureaucracy could possibly be slashed to increase the process -- however the time necessary for safety testing cannot be compromised, industry chiefs and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations told a virtual press conference hosted in Geneva.
"We're confident technology will arrest this disease," said IFPMA President David Ricks, the chairman of Eli Lilly and Company.
The global death toll has increased to over 9,000 with an increase of than 217,000 confirmed infections, according to an AFP tally predicated on official sources.
"When you think about how many people we would want to vaccinate -- after we have a vaccine -- all over the world, we're talking billions, and that's an enormous challenge," said David Loew, the executive vice president of Sanofi Pasteur.
"We must ensure safety. It does take 12 to 1 . 5 years until you have a registered vaccine available to buy."
Rajeev Venkayya, president of the Global Vaccines Business Unit at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, said that the timeline was "very aggressive but we think it could possibly be feasible".
A large number of clinical trials for vaccines and treatments are underway around the world following the virus's genome was shared by China, where COVID-19 first broke out in December.
But industry chiefs said they cannot lower the testing standards to have a preventative vaccine out there more quickly.
"You're injecting this into healthy people, so you don't want to have suddenly persons getting sick because you are short-cutting," said Loew.
"It could likewise have deleterious effects on other vaccines if people lose trust in vaccination," he added.
"The regulatory authorities are cutting red tape, and that is the way we are able to accelerate getting to the market quicker."
Venkayya added that some, if not almost all of the testing programs being run, would neglect to create a viable vaccine.
However, the worthiness of running multiple trials simultaneously was that "some will succeed and get across the finish line", he said.
- Equal access -
Venkayya said the industry would "prioritize access and equity in the distribution" of any effective vaccine.
Paul Stoffels, chief scientific officer at Johnson and Johnson, said the industry would make sure that any vaccine, wherever it is produced, "will be accessible" to everyone "who needs it" across the globe.
"That is clearly a promise for what we are doing jointly as a business," he stressed.
Stoffels said the challenge in reaching solutions was that the virus had new characteristics in comparison to outbreaks such as SARS.
"This virus is incredibly transmittable -- and that is what is so new. So it is a new virus that requires new tools, and that is where we have to begin from scratch on the study."
Meanwhile, Ricks said, money had not been the problem for pharmaceutical giants to find solutions.
"This is simply not a capital resource problem right now, more of a human resource problem," he said.
Ricks said nobody in the market was talking about how precisely to take the credit and earn a living out of vaccines and treatments, while public-private partnerships may help share any financial risks.
IFPMA director-general Thomas Cueni said the industry was putting on an unprecedented united front to conquer the virus.
"We won't rest until we find the perfect solution is," he said.
Source: www.theindependentbd.com
