Novavax Inc claims to be first vaccine effective against emerging UK and South Africa variants

Novavax Inc said on Thursday its coronavirus vaccine was 89.3 percent effective in preventing Covid-19 in a trial conducted in the UK, and was nearly as effective in protecting against the more highly contagious variant first discovered in the UK, according to a preliminary analysis.

A mid-stage trial of the vaccine in South Africa, where a troubling new variant of the virus is common, showed 60 percent effectiveness among people who did not have HIV.

Novavax shares surged 34 percent in after-hours trading following the release of the trial results on the same day the US reported its first cases of the South African variant.

The company’s vaccine, known as NVX-CoV2373, “is the first vaccine to demonstrate not only high clinical efficacy against COVID-19 but also significant clinical efficacy against both the rapidly emerging UK and South Africa variants,” Stanley Erck, Novavax president, and CEO, said in the announcement. “NVX-CoV2373 has the potential to play an important role in solving this global public health crisis.”

Regarding the trial in South Africa, “the 60% reduced risk against COVID-19 illness in vaccinated individuals in South Africans underscores the value of this vaccine to prevent illness from the highly worrisome variant currently circulating in South Africa, and which is spreading globally,” Shabir Maddi, principal investigator in the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine trial in South Africa, said in the announcement.

“This is the first COVID-19 vaccine for which we now have objective evidence that it protects against the variant dominating in South Africa,” Maddi said.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson welcomed the results of the British trial, hailing the “good news” that the vaccine candidate had proved effective and expressed his gratitude to “all the volunteers who made these results possible” in a tweet.

“Our medicines regulator will now assess the vaccine, which will be made in Teesside. If approved, we have 60m doses on order,” he tweeted.

The UK’s inoculation program has seen over 7.4 million people receive the first dose of a coronavirus vaccine so far, the latest government figures show. Two vaccines, from Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca, are already in use in the phased nationwide rollout. The Moderna jab has received the green light too.

Novavax is also currently conducting a Phase 3 clinical study in the United States and Mexico and a Phase 1/2 continuation in the US and Australia, data from which are expected as soon as early first quarter 2021.