Novavax Starts Late-Stage Trial of COVID-19 Vaccine in U.S., Mexico

Novavax announced that it is initiating a new clinical trial of up to 30,000 people in the United States and Mexico to test whether its experimental COVID-19 vaccine safely protects people from the virus, reports the Wall Street Journal . Novavax's inoculation will become the fifth COVID-19 vaccine to enter final-stage testing in the U.S. If results are positive, it could receive authorization sometime next year. Public health officials say that despite the introduction of the first two vaccines in the U.S., additional vaccines will be necessary to fulfill demand and control the pandemic. Although Novavax made no statement about when precisely the trial will produce results, it will likely be spring at the earliest. The vaccine contains proteins resembling the "spike" proteins on the surface of the coronavirus, which are supposed to trigger an immune response once injected. The Novavax trial is being funded with some of the $1.6 billion the drugmaker was awarded in July by the federal government, as part of the Operation Warp Speed initiative. The allocation also covers setup of large-scale manufacturing and delivery of 100 million doses for use in the U.S.