The Top 5 COVID Vaccine Companies

 

 

The Top 5 COVID Vaccine Companies 

the coven vaccine race as everyone knows there's a lot of activity going on right now as many different companies across the world are seeking to solve the coveted issue and of course, that issue won't be truly solved until we get a vaccine.

so today we'd like to talk to you about the top five companies and make our prediction about which one we think is in the lead right now and will ultimately deliver that much-desired coven vaccine so to start things off we want to uh give an honorable mention and that is to the Sanofi collaboration so anyone that pays attention to the farm industry knows that gsk and Sanofi are both big hitters within this space and they've teamed up together to develop a vaccine now they're an honorable mention because they got started a little bit later than the rest they're still working through their phase one two trials but the us government just announced a two billion dollar funding campaign as part of operation warp speed for gsk and Sanofi to ramp up their vaccine development all right so coming in at number five is Cancino now I know most of you are probably saying what is Cancino and it's understandable that you would not have heard of this company that's because it's entirely based in China but as we've seen china has a long history of battling this deadly disease they were the first to encounter it .they were the first to have to develop different measures to address this ongoing problem Cancino represents the greatest hope in china of developing a vaccine it's currently in phase 3 trials and it's using an innovative adenovirus associated vector that delivers pieces of the covid virus to cells and triggers an immune reaction so as mentioned they're about to start phase three but they have the unique designation of being the only vaccine in the world that is currently approved for human use now here's a caveat there it's not for everyone this vaccine has been developed.

collaboratively with the Chinese government and with the Chinese military so the Chinese government has given the green light for this vaccine to be ramped up for use in the Chinese military this is going to allow the Chinese army and navy to have protection against the virus even as it continues to grow across the world and thereby potentially gives china a strategic advantage over competitors there are a couple of issues though that we should discuss with this vaccine and whether it's going to be widely used throughout the world two major issues the The first one is that this uses the adenovirus associated vector and this is something that many people have been exposed to throughout their lifetime so this is a common virus that may spread throughout the population cause mild uh symptoms and there's a chance that not everyone who receives this vaccine is going to be protected due to their prior exposure to the adenovirus another the issue is that Cancino has found it really difficult to find other countries to collaborate with so considering the current political situation companies in China has found it challenging to recruit patients from outside of China and so whether the results of the vaccine on a China-only population are going to be widely applicable remains to be seen and that keeps this in the number five position all right so number four we've got johnson and johnson obviously they are a major player in the pharma space uh largest pharma company by market cap they've got they've all they're also using an adenovirus associated vector that is going to deliver pieces of the coronavirus to cells and trigger an immune system now they're a little bit behind other competitors so they are just wrapping up their phase one trials right now in both Belgium and the US but johnson johnson has one huge advantage in a scientific article recently published in nature in which johnson and johnson administered their virus a vaccine to monkeys they showed that it only required one dose to provide lasting immunity this is a huge advantage over other competitors because as we'll see manufacturing and the ability to ramp up dosing is a huge challenge within the vaccine space and so only needed one dose rather than two or three of course cuts that manufacturing burden in half so even though johnson and johnson got a late start they are blazing through their clinical trials right now and are on pace to start a phase 3 trial in September this has been rewarded by us government who has already entered into a contract with this company to provide a hundred million doses for one billion dollars all right coming in at number three and this might be a surprise for a lot of people that is modern Moderna was a company that got a lot of hype in the beginning so they are an mRNA based company this allowed them to translate their research into early-stage vaccine very early on in this process so back in march they started on clinical trials one of the first companies to get into this space and that boosted enthusiasm for this company.

so they started with a the stock price of around 19 they're up to 74 primarily based on the excitement and enthusiasm around their vaccine development they kept that innovative speed up so it wasn't just in phase one trials they also got into phase two trials early starting in mid-may and have now planned a large scale phase three trial that is beginning this month in 30 000 people an as an example of the excitement around Moderna, it got a specific call out from vice president mike pence when they made their announcement about the

phase 3 trials however there are a couple of drawbacks that prevent us from giving Moderna that number one spot the first is that strangely Moderna executives and other people within the company have seemed to have been selling off their shares at an alarming the rate which is the opposite of what one would expect if they had full confidence in this vaccine and it's also drawn skepticism from other investors the second point is that Moderna is a relatively small company especially when compared to major corporations like johnson and johnson

as such, they may lack the manufacturing capabilities to quickly ramp up on viral vector dosing versus other companies in this space, and therefore that may prevent them from becoming the number one vaccine of choice all right so coming in at number two we've got Pfizer now I'm sure everyone knows Pfizer is a huge company they're working with a smaller german company called bio end tech that is a specialist at developing mRNA-based vaccines Pfizer has just announced their phase 3 trial that consists of 30 000 patients and 120 sites globally one interesting aspect of Pfizer is that they took multiple candidates into phase one-two so they didn't just start with one shot on goal they took a couple of different shots and based on those phase one-two results have selected the vaccine that provides the greatest benefit Pfizer has some ambitious goals of when they can start the vaccine the production they're aiming for regulatory approval in October of this year, Pfizer has already signed a deal with the US government to provide 50 million doses for 2 billion they've also signed contracts with japan and certain members of the European Union to provide those doses when the the vaccine is ready we expect that based on Pfizer's capabilities their experience within this space and their manufacturing potential that they could be a key leader for vaccine production.

not just within us but globally all right and our long-awaited number one company in the covid vaccine race that is AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is collaborating with oxford to develop an innovative vaccine technology called chad ox1 this technology uses an adenovirus-based vector similar to what we've discussed with Johnson johnson and casino but this is taken from chimpanzees therefore functionally no humans have been exposed to this virus before which should make it easier for AstraZeneca to deliver these vaccines

and product efficacy in nearly everyone that receives it AstraZeneca was the first company to announce a phase 3 trial starting back in late June where they dosed 5 000 patients in brazil based on this extremely rapid development timeline it's expected that AstraZeneca may have approval for this sometime in later this month or in September now that sounds ambitious to us we're going to wait and see but even the fact that there is that potential really is a sign of how quickly AstraZeneca is moving along with their vaccine development so not only has AstraZeneca set a blazing pace for vaccine development but they've also already started lining up the sort of manufacturing capabilities that are essential for distributing a vaccine to the entire world population AstraZeneca has already collaborated with over 20 different manufacturing companies to ramp up dosage production to over 1 billion doses by the end of 2021.

additionally, another huge advantage is that AstraZeneca has been able to store their vaccines at two to eight degrees celsius which means that this is normal cold chain storage and makes the distribution the process that much easier therefore as things currently stand we're predicting that AstraZeneca is going to take first place in the vaccine race however, we should note that it's not a winner take all scenario considering how many different people need this vaccine basically the entire world that this may require a multi-company a collaborative effort that spans the globe to distribute these vaccines to all of those people in need all right so that's it for our thoughts on the covid vaccine race but we'd love to hear from you guys what are your thoughts on the race who do you think is going to win what other elements of vaccine development should we keep in mind please leave us a comment with your thoughts as well as give us a like and subscribe if you enjoyed this material thanks everyone again for joining us and we're really looking forward to the next time here