Imperial College London begins dosing in Covid-19 vaccine study
A clinical
team at Imperial College London has administered a Covid-19 vaccine candidate
to the first healthy participant in their clinical trial.
A small dose
of the vaccine was given to the volunteer at a West London facility.
The
development and clinical
trials of this Covid-19 vaccine candidate are supported by more than
£41m funding from the UK Government and an additional £5m in philanthropic
donations.
Based on a new
self-amplifying RNA (saRNA) technology, the vaccine was found to be safe and
generated promising evidence of an effective immune response in pre-clinical
safety tests and animal studies.
Imperial
College London Infectious Disease department professor Robin Shattock said:
“The first participant marks an important step for our saRNA vaccine platform,
which has never before been trialled in humans.
“We now
eagerly await rapid recruitment to the trial so that we can assess both the
safety of the vaccine and its ability to produce neutralising antibodies, which
would indicate an effective response against Covid-19.”
The
volunteer who received the first dose will be given a second booster dose
within four weeks. Multiple other participants are set to receive a first dose
over the coming days.Participants
will be monitored for safety and generation of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.
Initially,
15 healthy volunteers in the trial will be given a low dose of Imperial
vaccine, followed by increasingly higher doses for subsequent participants in
order to evaluate safety and determine the optimal dosage.
Over the
coming weeks, 300 healthy volunteers are set to receive two vaccine doses. If
positive safety and immune response data is obtained, larger trials will be planned
for later this year.
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