'10 Covid vaccines likely by 2021 summer'

November 28, 2020 00:19

Ten COVID-19 vaccines could be available by the middle of next year if they win regulatory approval, but their inventors need patent protection, the head of the global pharmaceutical industry group said on Friday.

Vaccines by Pfizer and BioNtech, as well as Moderna and AstraZeneca have shown promising results in large clinical trials, but there is no question of "cutting corners", said Thomas Cueni, director-general of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations.

"So far 3 we have 3 out of 3 were hits. I would expect that we will see something similar with Johnson & Johnson, I would expect that we would see similar positive results with Novavax, and many others, Sanofi Pasteur, GSK are in there, Merck," he said.

'Big Pharma' and biotech firms have invested heavily in research and development and in boosting manufacturing during the pandemic to be able to roll out vaccine doses, Cueni told a Geneva news briefing.

It would be a mistake to lift patent protection to allow compulsory licensing and try to make vaccines requiring such complex quality assurance without expert staff and quality control procedures, he said.

"We will hopefully by the next summer have probably 10 vaccines which have proven their value. But all of them really need to be submitted by rigorous scientific scrutiny by the regulators."

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