Covid-19 Vaccines, Therapies – 27 July 2020

BioRender Covid-19 vaccine and therapy tracker. (BioRender.com)

27 July 2020. A regular Monday feature each week on Science & Enterprise is an update on Covid-19 therapies and vaccines in development. The report is provided by BioRender, in Toronto, Ontario, a company offering illustration and graphics tools for life sciences, biotechnology, and other disciplines.

This week’s chart shows since last Monday more new activity for therapies than vaccines, with 15 new Covid-19 therapies joining the array of treatments in development. Of the 337 total therapies, 252 of these treatments are in clinical trials, a gain of 16 since last Monday. Also since last Monday, one more new candidate joined the Covid-19 vaccine collection raising the total to 156. Of that number, 34 vaccine candidates are in clinical trials, a gain of three since last week.

In addition to the summary dashboard shown above, the BioRender Covid-19 vaccine and therapy page provides details of the vaccines and therapies, as well as an activity feed showing news updates on these drugs.

A story in this morning’s New York Times reminds us that not all antibodies produced by Covid-19 vaccines, or the tests that detect them, are alike. The most potent neutralizing antibodies are those that block proteins on the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus spike from infecting cells, while other antibodies bind to the virus without neutralizing it. Early-stage clinical trials look primarily for safety issues with vaccines, but also for the candidate’s ability to produce an immune response. As vaccines progress into later stage trials, we will watch for candidates’ performance in producing these more potent antibodies.

More from Science & Enterprise:

• Synthetic Protein Designed to Boost Covid-19 Vaccines
• Oxford Covid-19 Vaccine Trial Invokes Immune Responses
• Covid-19 Vaccines, Therapies – 20 July 2020
• Start-Up Developing Coronavirus Antibodies, Raises $50M
• Immune Responses Shown in Covid-19 Nasal Vaccine

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