Novavax (Gaithersburg, Md.) may not be the best-known vaccine developer, but its COVID-19 vaccine offers performance in line with those from Moderna and Pfizer.
Its vaccine was 96.4% effective at preventing COVID-19 caused by the original strain of the virus in a Phase 3 study. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines offered efficacy in the mid-90% range in similar studies.
But the efficacy of the Novavax NVX–CoV23 vaccine dipped to 86.3% when it came to protecting against the U.K. variant (B.1.1.7).
Because of subtle differences in trial designs and timing, it is difficult to do head-to-head comparisons of clinical trials. The Phase 3 clinical trial results for the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines did not include data on SARS-CoV-2 variants.
In a separate Phase 2b trial in South Africa, the Novaax vaccine has an efficacy of 55.4% in HIV- negative trial volunteers. The majority of COVID-19 cases in the country are the result of the B1.351 variant. The South Africa and Brazil (P.1) variants are likely two of the most dangerous.
Across all of the trials, the Novavax offered full protection against death and hospitalization.
Novavax had announced interim results in January. The latest data provides additional statistical power, the company stated in a press release.
Filed Under: clinical trials, Drug Discovery, Infectious Disease
