Drug Companies Face Challenges In The Race To Find Vaccine For COVID-19

The entire world has been looking forward to the efforts of companies as they race to develop a vaccine for COVID-19. Health experts have been saying that until an effective vaccine has been successfully deployed, it will be hard to completely relax restrictions on social distancing that have affected the global economy.

Takes Years To Develop

Under normal circumstances, a vaccine may take anywhere between five and 10 years to develop. In this situation, however, when so much is at stake, drug companies see the need to come up with a vaccine within the 12-to18-month timeline set by federal health officials. Many of these drug companies have been in a race at breakneck speed to develop such vaccines. However, they have been encountering speed bumps such as strict policies on clinical trials and production capacity, not to mention governmental approval.

While drug companies report that they are already in the process of conducting limited human trials, they say the timeline set by federal health officials may have to be extended. Researchers recall that the mumps vaccine, which is considered to be one of the fastest developed and approved, took four years from initial development to its licensing in 1967.

The Biggest Hurdle

Researchers say that perhaps the biggest hurdle in finding a coronavirus vaccine is the laborious clinical trial phase. Over 70 drug companies are reportedly working on a potential vaccine, and many of them say they might not be able to make it through the clinical trial phase.

Some firms have conducted human trials using new technology, allowing them to use DNA or RNA sequencing to quickly develop vaccine contenders. Many are skeptical, however, about this unproven technology. No DNA or RNA vaccine for a virus has ever been approved yet, and besides, there are no drug companies that are currently working to make these types of vaccines.

Millions Of Doses Required

In mid-March, Moderna, a drug company, launched the first clinical trial of a potential vaccine for COVID-19. In an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek, the company claimed it can produce millions of doses of bulk vaccine each month.

While the statement may be very optimistic, everyone must realize the United States needs hundreds of millions of doses at the minimum to stop the disease, Dr. Jesse Goodman said. Dr. Goodman is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. According to the professor, the challenge here is that many of these fresh technologies have never passed the approval stage, much less produced at an industrial scale. Dr. Goodman spends over 15 years at the Food and Drug Administration and was a chief scientist under former President Obama.

Extensive Testing Required

He also said that even if a COVID-19 vaccine can be quickly developed, it will have to go through extensive testing to make sure it is safe for human use. Dr. Goodman said, “The time when [companies] are looking to ramp up manufacturing and have the capacity ... is not insignificant.”

Even under a very optimistic timeline, the steps needed to evaluate the vaccine’s safety and efficacy cannot be rushed, Dr. Peter Hotez said. Dr. Hotez is the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. He said time is needed to show that the vaccine works and that it is safe for widespread human use. “And it's hard to accelerate that,” according to Dr. Hotez.