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* Oxford clinical trial is latest of handful already begun
* Three European firms join forces for vaccine research
* Swiss company hopes to get vaccine into use this year
(Adds quotes from Wellcome and ReiThera, new byline and
dateline)
By Kate Kelland and Valentina Consiglio
LONDON/ROME April 23 (Reuters) - Scientists in Britain began
clinical trials of a potential COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday as
other vaccine developers across Europe also stepped up work on
experimental shots against the disease caused by the new
coronavirus.
A team at Britain's Oxford University dosed the first
volunteers in a trial of their vaccine - called "ChAdOx1
nCoV-19" - while Italy's ReiThera, Germany's Leukocare and
Belgium's Univercells said they were working together on another
potential shot and aimed to start trials in a few months.
Britain's GSK and France's Sanofi last
week announced a similar agreement to develop a COVID-19
vaccine, with trials starting in the second half of the year.
As many as 100 potential COVID-19 candidate vaccines are now
under development by biotech and research teams around the
world, and at least five of these are in preliminary testing in
people in what are known as Phase 1 clinical trials.
The Oxford scientists said last week that large-scale
production capacity was being put in place to make millions of
doses of the ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 shot, even before trials show
whether it is effective.
They said on Thursday that the main focus of initial tests
is "to find out if this vaccine is going to work against
COVID-19, if it won’t cause unacceptable side effects and if it
induces good immune responses".
ReiThera's chief technology officer Stefano Colloca told
Reuters his three-way consortium's potential vaccine technology
would allow for production to be rapidly scaled up from tens of
thousands to millions of doses, and would also have a long
shelf-life to ease distribution.
"We'll begin the trials in July. We have to add to the
challenge of developing a safe vaccine for COVID-19 the
important need to guarantee the production of millions of doses
in record time", he told Reuters.
Charlie Weller, head of vaccines at the Wellcome Trust
global health charity, said on Wednesday that to develop safe
and effective COVID-19 vaccines to protect everyone as soon as
possible, "the world needs to be prepared to execute the largest
and fastest scale-up in vaccine manufacturing history".
A Swiss scientist said on Thursday he aimed to get ahead of
industry projections that a COVID-19 vaccine will take 18
months, with a hope to put his laboratory's version in use in
Switzerland this year.
Martin Bachmann, head of immunology at Bern's Inselspital
hospital and founder of start-up Saiba Biotechaims, said he
planned to begin human trials in August in 240 volunteers if he
gets the necessary approval from drug watchdog Swissmedic.
Instead of using a weakened virus like some vaccines,
Bachmann said his team had opted for a "virus-like particle"
that mimics the coronavirus, only without its genetic material
needed for replication.
Companies in China, where the disease is thought to have
originated, are also working on potential vaccines.
The race for a vaccine has been fuelled by the shortage of
options for treating the disease. The European Union's drug
regulator on Thursday reiterated a warning against using two
older malaria drugs outside of trials or national emergency use
programmes, citing potentially lethal side effects.
(Reporting and writing by Kate Kelland in London; additional
reporting by Valentina Consiglio in Italy and by Stephanie
Nebehay, John Miller, Michael Shields and Cecile Mantovani in
Switzerland; editing by Philippa Fletcher)
