Clinical development efforts continue to advance toward finding safe and effective treatments and vaccines for COVID-19. Each week, we are taking a look at the notable updates and results across the global community of academic and industry clinical trials. By the middle of the third week in April, there were more than 530 trials for COVID-19 listed on clinicaltrials.gov (figure 1).1 We have observed an incredible number of trials added each week, with a 75% increase in trial volume in April alone.1
Of the clinical stage trials listed across our global sources,2 we identified more than 253 unique assets (vaccines, treatments or combinations of assets) under investigation worldwide in phase I to phase IV
Notable findings this week include:
- Waves of antiviral combinations and anti-inflammatory drugs (including monoclonal antibodies) are now under investigation
- COVID-19 trials have picked up across multiple geographies beyond China; the majority are in Iran, the U.S. and Europe
- Various trials across geographies were initiated evaluating the plasma from recovered or convalescent COVID-19 patients
Over the past few weeks, we have seen some interesting developments regarding potential COVID-19 vaccine candidates:
April 15, 2020
Ad5-nCoV vaccine (CanSino Biologics)
Phase II
CanSino Biologics has begun phase II of testing its vaccine candidate
- The company will enroll 500 people in the phase II study, comparing two doses of the vaccine (Ad5-nCoV) to dummy shots. As of April 13, 273 of the volunteers had been injected with CanSino’s vaccine candidate
- The vaccine is based on a genetically engineered vaccine developed to protect against Ebola
April 14, 2020
2019-nCoV inactivated vaccines (Sinovac Biotech and Wuhan Institute of Biological Products)
Phase I
China approves two COVID-19 inactivated vaccine candidates for clinical trials
- The two vaccines are China's first batch of inactivated vaccines (virus particles unable to cause disease) for COVID-19 that have obtained clinical trial approval
April 7, 2020
INO-4800 vaccine (Inovio)
Phase I
Inovio has been cleared by the FDA to begin human studies of its experimental DNA vaccine candidate, INO-48005
- Trial testing began in the first week of April in around 40 healthy volunteers
- Each participant will receive two doses of INO-4800 a month apart, and initial immune responses and safety data from the study are expected by late summer
For additional information about the evolving COVID-19 pipeline, study results and milestones, please visit our visual COVID-19 vaccine and treatment pipeline tracker. Check back weekly as we provide an updated view of the clinical development landscape and advancements in the search for safe and effective tools to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
