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Among the vaccines developed so far, the fastest completed mumps vaccine was developed in the 1960s, and the development period was 4 years. Therefore, it is expected that it will take some time for the Corona 19 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccine to be completed.
However, in November 2020, the COVID-19 vaccine BNT162b2, developed by US pharmaceutical company Pfizer and biotechnology company BioNTech SE, has a result that has more than 90% preventive effect in phase 3. In addition, on December 14 of the same year, the US Food and Drug Administration obtained the first license for use. Why did the development of the Corona 19 vaccine, which reached completion in less than a year, much shorter than the existing vaccine development, progressed so rapidly?
Dan Barouch, director of the CVVR Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Harvard Medical University, says his experience in developing a COVID-19 vaccine will change the future. He says the development of the vaccine for Corona 19 shows how quickly the vaccine development can proceed if sufficient resources are available for research amid a global emergency. In addition, the method of using mRNA, a new technique in vaccine development, has been verified in the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and it is shown that this new technique can greatly accelerate the development process without compromising safety.
The reason for the rapid progress of the COVID-19 vaccine is that in addition to the introduction of new development techniques, companies have huge funds that allow them to conduct multiple trials at the same time, while regulatory authorities show stimulus-related movements faster than usual, which is why the global COVID-19 vaccine is rapidly developed Explain that it was successful. It is pointed out that if such efforts are introduced into the development of vaccines other than the Corona 19 vaccine, there is a possibility that all vaccines can be developed faster in the future.
But at the same time, this does not mean that this guarantee is required. It is said that a large amount of funds is required for rapid vaccine development like the Corona 19 vaccine, but social and political urgency like the Corona 19 virus is needed to secure huge funds such as the Corona 19 vaccine development budget. In addition, because it is a virus that changes relatively slowly like SARS-CoV-2 and has been studied by many scientists, there is also an aspect that enables rapid vaccine development.
Originally, none of the studies related to the development of a COVID-19 vaccine existed in January 2020. However, since infections by other coronaviruses such as severe acute respiratory syndrome SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome MERS existed, vaccine development against the coronavirus was carried out before the emergence of Corona 19, which is also contributing to the development of the Corona 19 vaccine.
In addition, Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University medical school who has been engaged in the development of nucleic acid vaccines for more than 20 years depending on the length of DNA and RNA points out that mRNA vaccines such as BNT162b2 have benefited from basic research on DNA and RNA vaccines for the past 10-15 years. . He said that when the technologies related to DNA and RNA vaccines reached maturity, the Corona 19 pandemic occurred.If it was 5 years ago, the RNA vaccine related technology was not mature, and it would have been difficult to prepare to develop a Corona 19 vaccine.
In addition, NIAID researchers at the National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases in the United States understood that the best way to stabilize the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein before binding to host cells in MERS- and SARS-related studies is to adjust the RNA sequence. Barney Graham, a NIAID vaccine researcher, explains that if the spike protein can be stabilized before it binds to the host cell, it could be a better vaccine antigen. In fact, NIAID is developing a vaccine in cooperation with Modena, which develops the Corona 19 vaccine, and according to the results of the NIAID study, the vaccine development has succeeded in starting a smooth start.
Not only that, but because people were paying close attention to the Corona 19 virus, the process of developing the Corona 19 vaccine was really accelerated, and the preceding research was helpful in the development of the Corona 19 vaccine.
Unlike viruses such as the human immunodeficiency virus HIV and influenza virus, SARS-CoV-2 does not have the effect of neutralizing the human immune system, which is relatively late in mutation. In contrast, the herpes virus has a high evasion ability and it is quite difficult to find an effective agent for herpes to block antibody binding in advance. In addition, because influenza virus mutates rapidly, different vaccine preparations are needed for each season. The fact that these characteristics were not present in SARS-CoV-2 clearly contributed to the acceleration of vaccine development.
In addition, the big bottleneck for vaccine development is funding, but in the case of Corona 19 vaccine development, a large amount of money was poured, and the development proceeded smoothly. Rino Rappuoli, former chief scientist in the pharmaceutical company’s GSK vaccine sector, provides massive funding for vaccine development from public agencies and private charities, allowing multiple phases of clinical trials to be carried out simultaneously, which can accelerate vaccine development. Explain that there was.
He explained that Ebola, which destroyed Africa, did not receive large-scale aid through funding for the development of such a vaccine, so the development of the Ebola vaccine took considerable time. However, Corona 19 caused economic crises in all countries around the world and was able to receive a lot of financial support. In other words, it suggests that the development of vaccines for existing infections such as malaria might not have been done so quickly, he points out that a lot of funding was provided for vaccine development because it is Corona 19, which attracted the economy and caused a global pandemic.
Peter Hotez, a virologist at Baylor Medical University, says not only that he wants to stop Corona 19, but also that the rich funding of government agencies may have motivated pharmaceutical companies to develop vaccines. It is also important that the infrastructure to cope with the infection crisis was established as infections such as Ebola and SARS spread before the Corona 19 epidemic. If SARS was in epidemic like Corona 19 in 2002, it is possible that vaccine development technology has not been as advanced as it is today and there was no infrastructure to respond to infection, so it could have become much more difficult than Corona 19.
Among them, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) played an important role as an infrastructure for countermeasures against infectious diseases. CEPI is an organization launched in 2017 and its purpose is to establish the technology infrastructure necessary to quickly and inexpensively develop vaccines against potentially pandemic infections such as MERS and Ebola. CEPI is providing funding for research at the University of Modena and Oxford, and it can be said that it has contributed significantly to the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
In addition, although there are many viruses that can infect humans, several factors such as SARS-CoV-2 could be combined to enable rapid development. Therefore, it is necessary to know more about the virus in preparation for a future crisis. It could be of great help in the development of future infection countermeasures and vaccines to build and maintain a robust platform based on basic science. Related information can be found here .
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