AP Photo/Ted S. Warren
A pharmacist gives Jennifer Haller, left, the first shot in the first-stage safety study clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, Monday, March 16, 2020, at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
- The first US-based clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine is expanding to soon begin recruiting healthy volunteers in Georgia.
- The trial is testing a vaccine candidate produced by the upstart biotech Moderna. The first participant was dosed on March 16 at the first study location, Kaiser Permanente Washington's research clinic in Seattle.
- The second location at Emory University is not open for business yet, but aims to start recruiting participants within the next week, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.
- The National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases also confirmed Monday the trial expansion to a second site at Emory University. The new trial location was recently added to a federal database of clinical trials.
- It will take at least a year to know if the vaccine is safe and effective against the virus, according to top US health officials. This first study is primarily focused on safety, testing a small group of 45 healthy adults.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
The first-ever clinical trial in the US of a coronavirus vaccine is expanding beyond the Seattle area.
Researchers at Emory University will soon begin recruiting and dosing healthy volunteers in addition to the first trial site of Seattle's Kaiser Permanente Washington's research clinic. The second site in the suburbs of Atlanta is aiming to start recruiting volunteers within the next week, a university spokesperson told Business Insider.
This initial clinical trial is primarily focused on making sure the vaccine is safe in humans, planning to enroll 45 healthy volunteers who are 18 to 55 years old. It is testing three dose strengths of a vaccine candidate developed by Moderna, an upstart biotech using a novel and unproven genetic platform to develop vaccines.
The NIH and Moderna have progressed into clinical testing with historical speed in the face of a pandemic. The virus was genetically sequenced only about two months ago.
Instead of needing copies of the virus itself, the biotech needed only the genetic information of the coronavirus, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told Business Insider. It took 42 days for Moderna to move from sequencing the virus to shipping a vaccine candidate to NIH officials.
The vaccine has a long way to go to reach a broader population. The study that just started is primarily focused on making sure the vaccine is safe in humans. If it is, future trials will test larger groups of people to determine whether it can actually prevent infection.
Clinical testing will take at least a year to 18 months to determine whether the vaccine is safe and effective, Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the National Institutes of Health's infectious-disease unit, has repeatedly said.
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