(Government of Saskatchewan/Submitted)

By CKOM News

Good news even if questions remain, VIDO-InterVac head says of Moderna announcement

Nov 16, 2020 | 6:37 PM

The head of the Saskatoon lab working toward a COVID-19 vaccine hasn’t seen the data behind the promising claims being made by a U.S. pharmaceutical company.

On Monday morning, Moderna announced its vaccine candidate is 94.5 per cent effective.

If that is true, Dr. Volker Gerdts — the director and CEO at VIDO-InterVac — says it’s encouraging news, even if more questions need to be answered.

“It tells us that vaccines in general can protect us against COVID-19,” Gerdts told Gormley on Monday.

“What we don’t know at the moment is how long does the immune response last, how many vaccinations do we need to get (and) how often. There’s still lots of questions that need to be addressed. But overall, I think Canadians can be very positive that there will be vaccines coming out in the very near future.”

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Moderna’s announcement comes a week after a similar one made by its competitor, Pfizer.

As for VIDO-InterVac’s vaccine development, Gerdts said the lab is on track and is hoping to start clinical trials next month.

Vaccines go through three phases of clinical trials. The first two are to assess the vaccine’s safety, with testing done on smaller groups of volunteers.

Gerdts said VIDO-InterVac will be combining its first two phases.

The third phase is for determining the efficacy of the vaccine on a population of more than 30,000 people.

One group gets the vaccine while the other gets a placebo. Researchers then find out how many cases of COVID-19 are in each group.

To have a vaccine near the horizon this quickly is an unprecedented feat, Gerdts said.

“It’s really only possible, I would say, due to the support and the financial support from the governments around the globe right now (and) big foundations like the Gates Foundation,” he said.

That money allows companies to work on multiple vaccine candidates at a time, proceeding with the most promising ones.

“You normally review the data, then you make a decision and then you go to the next step. Now with with the money that is being pumped in, all the big manufacturers have three or four or five candidates that are developing in parallel,” Gerdts said.

“Then depending on the data as it becomes available, you can afford to lose the money you invested in two or three of those candidates and just proceed with the one that works the best.”