German drug maker, Novartis, has signed a manufacturing agreement to produce a novel genetic COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the US-based Mass General Brigham health care system.
The gene therapy unit AveXis of the drug manufacturer informed of the development on Thursday.
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“The COVID-19 pandemic is the most urgent public health crisis of our time and we recognize the significance of evaluating the potential role of a gene-based vaccine,” said AveXis President Dave Lennon in a statement issued by Mass General Brigham’s Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Massachusetts General Hospital.
AveXis is contributing technology, expertise and supply chain at no cost to supply the vaccine for clinical trials for the candidate scheduled to begin in the second half of 2020, according to the statement.
More than 100 vaccine candidates against SARS-CoV-2 are in development, with about 12 in human testing designed mainly to evaluate safety.
Experts have predicted that a successful vaccine will take more than a year to develop and companies and governments are pouring money into dozens of programmes as their best hope of allowing a durable escape from lockdowns and get economies expanding again.
The United States last week secured almost a third of the first 1 billion doses planned for AstraZeneca’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine by pledging up to $1.2 billion.
