Member Info for TorquayFan

A 'Nature' briefing - it's always good news to hear positive comments about vaccines - even Sputnik V ! Some discussion about this on R4 and the possibility of dosing Sputnik V after a first dose of say Oxford/AZ - there's a long way to go on that discussion I suspect.

Headlined - "Russian vaccine has 91.6% efficacy - Peer-reviewed data show that the Russian COVID vaccine called Sputnik V is safe and that it works. The randomized, placebo-controlled phase III trials, done at 25 hospitals and clinics in Moscow, Russia, included almost 22,000 people. The vaccine showed 91.6% efficacy. In a move criticized by many scientists as reckless, Russian regulators licensed the vaccine for limited rollout in August, without waiting for safety or efficacy data from a phase III trial. It is already in use in several countries, including the United Arab Emirates and Iran."

I can't seem to link it - anyone ? Otherwise I can copy more . . . .

But here's another try : https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00191-4/fulltext? hTTps://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00191-4/fulltext? Https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)00191-4/fulltext?

K in your previous grump, you reprimanded an alleged 'News Tomorrow' gang and I thought that was a bit moody - but I noticed that you had 10 and 7 recs ! However, re. this grump, I'm just surprised that you haven't produced more data to support your reserved thoughts on 'Covidity', (which I guess many of us share), even though there may be high hopes around!

Never mind - at least you managed to wake up Wildforce who has been very quiet for a long time. Well done for that !

Knowlesi that's right - of course, interest in the Scancell 2nd Gen rules here.

Re. other candidates - do you have any more detail about the rival 2nd Gens ?

Thanks.

Just had a look at this https://youtu.be/IoX9PE2uGKQ

I thought CH did well enough - good to hear SCIB1 Combo is expected 'to gain momentum in the next few months' and that the start of Modi 1 trial is still H1 - 4 targets !

Krafty - at 4 mins 18 secs, CH seems to say that apart from the vaccine destined for the clinic, there's another in development aimed specifically at the Brazil/SA variants - so we have a hopefully 'generic' Covid vaccine and one aimed at specific targets ?

Oh well - amazing stuff as always, but back to waiting now !

Sorry that last sentence slipped out of the ""

And https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00241-6?

"The best and most immediate way to combat the threat of emerging variants is still probably to quickly vaccinate as many people as possible with current shots, says Mani Foroohar, a biotechnology analyst at the investment bank SVB Leerink in Boston, Massachusetts: “We need to get vaccines in arms and to smother this virus before it blows up in our face again.”

and . . . . "How will people respond to updated vaccines if they’ve already been immunized? Researchers don’t yet know how a person who has been fully vaccinated with a first-generation COVID vaccine will respond to a fresh vaccine against a new variant. Immunologists have long observed that people tend to mount more robust immune responses to the first variant of a pathogen that they encounter than subsequent variants. This phenomenon could mean that updated vaccines might trigger more muted immune responses than those to a first vaccine. “The fear is that boosting somebody with a variant won’t make a new response against that variant,” says Weissman. “It’ll just boost the old response.”

But Weissman argues that there is some evidence that RNA vaccines may not fall prey to this trend. For reasons that are not clear, some RNA vaccines trigger surprisingly complex immune responses, yielding antibodies that target regions of viral proteins that are often undetected by responses to other kinds of vaccines. This could mean that RNA vaccines will also be better able to target the changes present in a variant, Weissman says.

And Offit notes that a variant-specific response may not be necessary: even if an updated vaccine mainly boosts the response to an earlier coronavirus vaccine, that may still be enough to fend off the variants, he says."

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00241-6?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=65657f8ef0-briefing-dy-20210201&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-65657f8ef0-46080614

But Foroohar and others expect that, in the future, a bevy of new vaccines will emerge to take the COVID variants head on. Nature explores the open questions about updating the world’s coronavirus vaccines.

Inan's reply to 08.54 : "If you have had Gen 1st vaccine ie two dose, you will have protection from severe disease from the Jan 2019 to Jan 2020. Variants of Covid - Its not yet proven to sterilise thus you can still get covid giving the virus the chance to evade Antibodies generated by the vaccine however if you do get infected and recover your immune system will now have experience and you will probably not get it again. with current variants. So its all about Broadening the immune response. Scancells literature, uses the word "prevent" so if its given on top of 1st Gen ... it broadens the immune response of the person receiving it, it will not act as a booster to the 1st vaccine but its a booster to the immune system ie "broader" so a 1st Gen Vaccine prime Boost acts on the immune response and boosts the specific immune response. Sec Gen widens that response to include "other Targets" ".

Thanks for that . . .

The UK Govt's vaccine roll out IS going well atm and vaccine supplies seem to have continuity. It looks as if 1st Generation vaccination may be completed in the UK in the next 6 months if not before. The great unanswered question is, how long does the 1st Generation immunity last ? We see suggestions that immunity should normally last at least 6 months but does that leave a vulnerability to a Covid appearing sometime next autumn/winter ?

I suppose I'm wondering, in a situation where 2nd Gen vaccines are needed, is any one vaccine, (say Covidity for the sake of argument), likely to be compatible as a supplement in people who have a received any 1st Gen vaccine i.e. can Covidity, or any other 2nd Gen vaccine, be administered irrespective of which 1st Gen vaccine was used first ?

I doubt there's a categorical answer at this stage, but any views please !

Roses the answer is yes - Scancell can help - hopefully. However when SN14 arrived it was suggested that it might cope with new Covid arrivals and yet it's being adapted a little already - I suppose that move to SN15 / SCOV1 is fine tuning only. GLA

Crikey - and apart from no clinical benefit, '76.2% of patients developed treatment-related adverse events in Keytruda/ Yervoy arm vs 68.3% in those who received the monotherapy'. So we now have to try a CI with something else ! Step forward Scancell . . . .

RW thanks for that - I got into SA for 3 months but am now locked out. It's a useful source IMO.

Yes Hasiba - thanks - for 'twas you not WTP - we should move the HoC and HoL to Nottingham for 10 years while they renovate ?

Yes WTP - his Biopic : I am currently Director of the University of Nottingham Centre for Cancer Sciences, and lead of the cancer Research Priority Area. I am also co-Director of Research and Deputy Head of the School of Medicine. I am the Head of Department of Cancer Biology within the Division of Cancer and Stem Cells.
https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/medicine/people/david.bates

https://twitter.com/couloirjunkie/status/1355282618334511107?s=21

Hope he's right there !!!

Some interesting points in 'More or less' on BBC R4 last night, always a good listen IMO https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000rln5 Daily UK deaths - 1st wave figures have been generally understated when comparing with 2nd wave figures - there's far more testing going on now, so more now come 'within the 28 days of a test' criteria of course.

Daily figures is not for deaths that day but deaths 'reported' on that day. The 1st wave peak of 1073 was on 8.4.20 but when you spread figures to day of death, that day was actually 1456 - so the peak of deaths was in the 1st wave.

The 2nd wave peak of 1820 (reported) on 20.1.21 was actually 1028 on the day - this may creep up a little as the analysis continues. So the 2nd wave peak is 1028+ compared to the 1st wave peak of 1456 . . .

These figures are prominent daily in the minds of media and populace - the Govt. machine should have made MUCH more effort to explain and present these crucial figures in a meaningful way.

12 months into a pandemic and Govt. can't even present that 'basic' correctly. But well done with the vaccines !

WTP that looks good but I'm sure 'delivery and execution' has always been the Agenda. Extra SCIB1 sites would be great and let's hope the SCIB1 Combo recruitment goes better post-Covid than it did pre-Covid. Maybe there will be more Patients willing to enter trials due to the delay in other cancer treatments this last year. In which case, I hope SCIB1 Combo really helps them. I hope recruitment for the Modi1 trials goes well too !

Burble I'm sure SN14, 15 and 99 will be in widespread use by the time you are 2021 (wink).

Disappointing that SCIB2 is still in the CRUK vacuum ?

Not much excitement today except, Modi 1 - "Progress made towards initiation of Modi-1 Phase 1/2 clinical trial, with GMP drug manufacture advancing and formal regulatory-compliant toxicity studies complete".

Onwards then - plenty going on . . . . hopefully.

That's right C11 - the last RNS re. vaccine selection was Dec 18th - not so long ago. Maybe the problem is 'that time flies when you're having fun' and . . . we're not !

Chester - Interims are due any day now. Maybe an RNS 2m re. Patents or Covidity or Modi 1 trials and the Interims on Friday - (then I woke up). GLA

. . . . . . . "Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said that the EU would press on with the export mechanism that would force companies to ask for permission before vaccines could leave the bloc. In a speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mrs von der Leyen said: “They must honour their obligations and this is why we will set up a vaccine export to transparency mechanism.”

UK officials were in talks with the EU to understand whether the move would impede supplies of the Belgian-made Pfizer vaccine, with Government sources insisting that the projected supply remained unchanged. Mr Han**** said that ministers were "confident" that supplies would not be disrupted after conversations with the chief executives of both Pfizer and AstraZeneca. He added: "But I would urge all international partners in fact to be collaborative and working closely together, and I think protectionism is not the right approach in the middle of a pandemic."

Diplomatic sources also claimed AstraZeneca vaccines meant for and paid for by the EU could have ended up in Britain, suggesting that the pharmaceutical company supplied the UK from the EU vaccine stock because Britain paid a higher price for the dose and approved it sooner. However, Mr Soriot pointed out that the vaccine was being produced for no profit, and countries around the world had been charged effectively the same price.

"We want to treat Europe as best we can. You know, we do this at no profit, remember?" he said. "So we would like to treat Europe as good as possible. And I actually do believe we treated Europe fairly." "

Well played Mr Soriot https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/01/26/britain-track-vaccinate-nearly-everyone-aged-50-march-astrazeneca/

"Asked whether the EU had left it too late, Mr Soriot replied: "I will not pass judgment on this. But I can only tell you the facts, and the facts are that we basically signed an agreement with the UK three months before we did have it with Europe. The UK contract was signed three months before the European vaccine deal. So with the UK we have had an extra three months to fix all the glitches we experienced. As for Europe, we are three months behind in fixing those glitches. Look, the sites that have the lowest productivity in the network are the sites that are supplying Europe. One of the plants with the highest yield is in the UK because it started earlier."

Sources close to AstraZeneca said dedicated supply chains had been set up for each international agreement to prevent countries squabbling over the same doses. Whitehall sources said AstraZeneca’s three UK factories would be free to supply other countries, but only when 100 million doses of the Oxford vaccine had already been delivered to this country. "This is a commercial agreement. Those doses are for us, and they will not be going anywhere until all 100 million have been delivered to the UK," one Government source said.

It came amid increasing international acrimony, with Mr Han**** accusing the EU of "protectionism" by threatening to block doses from leaving Europe without prior approval. EU leaders threatened legal action after AstraZeneca unexpectedly announced on Friday it would cut supplies in the first quarter of this year, a move that would reportedly mean a 60 per cent reduction to the agreed 31 million doses. Pfizer has also announced a temporary slowdown in deliveries of its vaccine while the firm upgrades its main factory.

Mr Soriot said that his firm had never made a contractual commitment to supply the doses, as Brussels has suggested. Instead, he said the company agreed to make its "best efforts" because the EU wanted to be supplied at more or less the same time as the UK, even though the contract was signed three months later. The best efforts falls short of a contractual commitment, which would weaken the EU's position were it to attempt to take legal action against AstraZeneca" . . . .

Well this was very good to read today - Pascal Soriot of AZ, playing a very straight bat indeed regarding the distribution of vaccines : "UK 'head start' on EU means over-50s will be vaccinated by March, AstraZeneca chief says. Comments come amid rising tension after EU threatened to block vaccine doses from leaving Continent without prior approval. . . .

The UK's "head start" in rolling out vaccines before the European Union means nearly everyone aged over 50 will be inoculated by March, the AstraZeneca chief executive has said. Pascal Soriot said he believed the UK was on course to administer doses to "maybe 28 or 30 million people" within weeks – nearly half the total population – and would comfortably hit the target of vaccinating the most vulnerable groups by mid-February.

It came amid rising international tension after the EU threatened to block vaccine doses from leaving the Continent without prior approval, leading Matt Han****, the Health Secretary, to accuse Brussels of "protectionism and narrow nationalism".
Last week, the EU's rollout was thrown into disarray when AstraZeneca announced scheduled shipments of around 15 million doses would be delayed by manufacturing problems.

On Tuesday, EU politicians accused the firm of withholding the bloc's "fair share" of doses and suggested the UK had been given preferential treatment. But Mr Soriot said the EU had been "treated fairly," adding that Britain had a three-month "head start" after agreeing a deal for 100 million doses in May, three months before the EU. He revealed that British plants had among the best yield in the world after spending months perfecting the process, while EU factories had been left with the "lowest productivity in the network".

"By March, the UK will have vaccinated maybe 28 or 30 million people. The Prime Minister has a goal to vaccinate 15 million people by mid-February, and they're already at 6.5 million. So they will get there," Mr Soriot told Italian newspaper La Repubblica. Vaccinating at that rate would represent a significant acceleration, with the current NHS target to have given all 32 million over-50s their first dose by the end of April. Mr Soriot also signalled that doses manufactured in the UK would not be diverted to the Continent after EU leaders reportedly asked whether British vaccines could help make up the shortfall.

"The contract with the UK was signed first and the UK, of course, said 'you supply us first' and this is fair enough," Mr Soriot said. "As soon as we can, we'll help the EU." Sources at the firm also pointed out that Italy, Germany, France and the Netherlands had reached a preliminary agreement in June, only for the EU Commission to insist on formalising the deal – which took another two months." . . . . cont'd

Me - that last para is quite clear and it seems this Frenchman is not about to be rolled over by EU posturing !