Friday 24 June 2022 03:51 PM GSK announces that COVID-19 vaccine candidate is effective at preventing ... trends now
Another COVID-19 vaccine could soon hit markets in the United States, after European pharma giants Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) revealed Friday that their jab candidate was more than 70 percent effective at preventing infection from the highly infectious Omicron variant.
The companies have not yet applied for authorization in the U.S., but is expected that they will make a bid to have their shots join the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Novavax vaccine in the arsenal of available shots in America - and across the world.
It comes as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) both face criticism for approving the Pfizer and Moderna shots for children aged six months to four years old.
The news comes as America's Covid situation remains stable are 99,984 cases per day, but deaths have made a sharp 20 percent jump over the past week to 385 daily.
The so-called bivalent vaccine targets the Beta variant - first identified in South Africa - as well as the original Wuhan strain of the virus.
In a trial involving 13,000 adults, the vaccine demonstrated an efficacy rate of 64.7 percent against symptomatic Covid, and 72 percent efficacy against infections specifically caused by the Omicron variant.
When used in people who previously had Covid, the results were stronger. The vaccine generated an efficacy rate of 75.1 percent against symptomatic COVID and 93.2 percent in Omicron-confirmed symptomatic cases, the companies said.
GSK and Sanofi have partnered for a COVID-19 vaccine candidate that is over 70% effective at preventing infection from the Omicron variant (file photo)
'Sanofi-GSK's vaccine is the first candidate to demonstrate efficacy in a placebo-controlled trial in an environment of high Omicron variant circulation,' Sanofi said in a statement.
Sanofi's Paris-listed shares and GSK's London-listed shares were both up more than 1% in morning trading.
Earlier this month, the bivalent vaccine showed potential in two trials to protect against the virus' main variants of concern - the Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 strains - when used as a booster shot.
Sanofi and GSK, two of the world's biggest vaccine makers,
