Member Info for Bermudashorts

TF,

BioNTech have been working with Pfizer for 2 years on mRNA flu vaccines so makes complete sense for them to jointly develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The fact that they are going down the mRNA route whilst others take a different approach is really no different from the situation with cancer vaccines. BioNTech are going down the mRNA personalised route whilst Scancell are looking at DNA or siPTM induced peptide vaccine. Only time will tell how it all plays out but it won't necessarily be one size fits all.

Crumbs,

Other UK COVID-19 vaccine developers include Cobra Biologics are working in collaboration with the Karolinska Institutet, Imperial College and GSK working in collaboration with Sanofi. Of course several others are working on testing or therapeutic drugs and I'm sure there are probably others developing vaccines that I've missed.

Crumbs - thanks I'll take a look.

We seem to be concentrating on the Oxford vaccine, perhaps because David Evans chose to use it as a comparison but there are over 75 other vaccines in development. Some won't work, some may be too toxic and others will hopefully work to varying degrees. Most important thing is that a safe and effective vaccine is approved and then widely administered as quickly as possible.

The mRNA vaccines being developed by Moderna and BioNTech are going to be interesting, success will no doubt result in increased interest and a huge boost to their cancer vaccines.

Inanaco,

I didn't disagree with you at all - you asked a question in your 7.56 - why Oxford weren't testing the over 55's and I answered it. You seem to think they have got it wrong.

I see you have trawled back through my previous posts on ADVFN and quoted on here - I stand by those comments.

It's why, in addition to Lindy Durrant, the Covidity project is being jointly led by a Professor of Virology - Professor Jonathan Ball. It's also why Government money has poured into the Imperial and Oxford collaborations - both led by infectious disease/virology specialists whilst Scancell are looking for funding. Finally, it's also why Scancell's product won't enter the clinic until next year.

Inanaco,

You are absolutely correct that any COVID vaccine has to be proven in the over 55 year old age group - of course it does and the Oxford and BioNTech trials will do just that, when they have confidence that it's safe. Given the tragedy of the measles situation, the very last thing the World needs is any issue with vaccine safety. You'd never achieve your herd immunity!

You don't have to run another phase I trial - that's not how it works.

Remember, unlike cancer trials, these are healthy volunteers - people who are perfectly fit and well and out of the goodness of their hearts have agreed to volunteer to have a brand new, unproven and possibly dangerous drug injected into their bodies. It's a tried and tested method to test for safety first on the least vulnerable groups. The data coming out of that trial then will give regulators the confidence to allow expansion of the trial to include older and younger patients in the phase III. So it won't slow down the progress of the drug and it won't require another phase I.

Before any of these vaccines get to market they'll need to be tested in thousands of patients.

Well clearly you can't definitively do so but if a vaccine is safe in a 54 year old then it's likely to be safe in a 55 year old. The flip side of the coin is that if a vaccine is shown to have high toxicity and lead to fatalities in a 54 year old then it most definitely will in a young child or a 55 year old.

Inanaco,

Yes, clearly including over 55's gives a more complete picture but they must be satisfied that they'll have sufficient data from the current trial to assess the likelihood of efficacy in the older age groups and to inform a decision as to whether or not to proceed to a phase III. It's a fairly standard approach, indeed BioNTech/Pfizer also have a 55 age limit on their phase I, CanSino's limit was 60.

It surely has to be safety first and these are healthy volunteers so why expose the most vulnerable groups to a vaccine before you have proven it's safe?

………...not sure how including over 55's in phase I clinical trials is going to speed up the path to approval.

Inanaco,

Ruck is correct, the age limit of 55 is a safety issue. The ChAdOx1 Oxford trial is just a phase I/II and next stage will be larger trials to include children and older people.

Sorry, I'm still not with you. I note that you believe Scancell are being gagged but that still doesn't explain for what you are giving the benefit of the doubt - ie. what is your doubt? Are you referring to their lack of communication?

As for the clinical trials, I think the chances of Scancell being able to set up new trial centres in the US or even commencing recruitment in the UK for SCIB1 are pretty remote. So I would caution against any idea that the trials are going quietly ahead in the background regardless of any added protection.

Can you explain what you mean when you say that you're willing to give Scancell the benefit of the doubt - how so? Do you mean generally? In relation to Covid-19? In relation to cancer?

Also, what are you referring to when you say the UK ordered the wrong tests?

Meanwhile, as WTP has highlighted, cancer hasn't gone away. Each and every day around 1000 people in the UK develop cancer and that continues despite coronavirus, so the need for effective treatments is as great as ever.

A peer-reviewed article published a couple of weeks ago looking at immune responses to NY-ESO-1 might be of interest to some here. Of course, NY-ESO-1 is the target for SCIB2 which gets a mention in the paper:-

'Pre-clinical studies on plasmid DNA vaccine, encoding NY-ESO-1 epitopes, has shown induction of prophylactic anti-tumor cytotoxic T cell immune responses in vivo [83]. SCIB2, a DNA vaccine, encoding human IgG1 antibody, with 16 NY-ESO-1 epitopes (nested within the four regions of NY-ESO-1 covering the most common class I and class II haplotypes) has shown promising results in transgenic mice [84]. SCIB2 DNA constructs were found to induce CD4+/CD8+ T cell responses to NY-ESO-1 epitopes with long term survival in 35% of mice. Interestingly, enhanced antitumor responses with 100% long-term survival was observed when SCIB2 was used in combination with checkpoint inhibitors (anti-CTLA-4 and anti-PD-1 antibodies)'

They conclude:-

'Comprehensive and compelling data from preclinical/clinical trials on NY-ESO-1 evidence its dynamic potential as a candidate for immunotherapy for a variety of malignancies. However, further trials and pre-clinical data are in the pipeline that will help to decipher its inherent and powerful immunological prowess to its full potential.'

https://translational-medicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12967-020-02306-y

Chelsea,

Yes, wearing her University of Nottingham hat.

Have only had a quick read of intro. and conclusion but research is looking at the natural and citrullinated form of a peptide called LL37 and its potential as a biomarker or therapeutic treatment in the autoimmune diseases of lupus and psoriasis.

So no direct overlap with Scancell in the sense that it's not cancer related, but LD's expertise in citrullinated peptides is obviously the driving force behind Moditope and her contribution to this research.

Link below is to research published last week in Nature - Italian and Swiss researchers investigating the role of peptide LL37 (native and citrullinated) in autoimmune disease, specifically lupus and psoriasis and Lindy Durrant is listed as one of the contributing authors:-

L.D. provided expertise in selection of control antigenic peptides and their MHC-binding abilities

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-62480-3

Absolutely spot on

Ruck,

Just to add to that, victims of domestic abuse who will be trapped in isolation with their abusers, children who are at risk and will not be receiving the full protection of social services. Sounds dramatic but I'm convinced we'll be horrified when the full impact of this is known.

Your solution appears to be testing.

Can you explain exactly how that would work - who would you test, with what type of test and how often would you do it? Please bear in mind that an antibody test which is accurate enough for mass testing doesn't yet exist.

BB please ignore the following post which is for TF.

TF, I should pre-empt this post by stating that I am not a Brexiteer and most definitely no fan of Boris Johnson or DC.

I believe that it's an absolute tragedy that this country is fighting this virus at a time when it is so bitterly divided with Brexit divisions still running deep and polarisation of views to the far left and right. This has resulted in a toxic environment, particularly on social media. Any excuse to criticise is seized with glee and many facts are being twisted to suit. There are far too many armchair experts forming judgements based on their political opinions rather than facts or knowledge. It's so easy to take the cynical, negative route rather than taking any time whatsoever to balance with positives and believe me there are some positives. Facts are simply dismissed if they don't suit the agenda as clearly demonstrated by Balerno yesterday.

I am absolutely convinced that the many UK scientists involved in devising and implementing the UK strategy have done so to the best of their ability with the information available at the time. As more data has come along they have escalated their planned response, fully in line with their strategy from the outset. We won't know for at least another year whether they were right or not.

There are legitimate questions to be answered by the Government, especially regarding PPE and testing which must be resolved with the utmost urgency but I find the constant sniping, linking to alarmist and often poorly research articles and the attempts to undermine the scientific experts utterly, utterly depressing. Who knows you may be right and I may be the one suffering from confirmation bias but at least I'm open minded enough to realise that!

I can only hope that when this is all over, researchers in the field of epidemiology will have vast amounts of data and evidence which will help to protect us from future pandemics.

TF

The experts don't yet understand it so I'm sure we're not going to come up with the explanation here.

The point I'm making is that if you want to judge the performance of the UK by making comparisons to other countries then you have to take into account the full facts, not just select those that suit. At this very early stage I think we'd all agree that it would be nonsense to claim the UK were performing better than France for example.

Ruck,

No, the death rate I was referring to was the number of deaths per 1 million of population and therefore nothing to do with testing.