Since the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 virus in China and its spread
across the globe in mid-January 2020, researchers and biopharmaceutical
companies worldwide are competing in a race of to find a cure. Governments of
developed, developing, emerging, and under-developed nations are working at
their maximum potential to contain the spread of virus and limit the rapidly
increasing number of coronavirus cases. For governments, biggest hurdles in the
way of handling coronavirus pandemic situation are severe disruption of
economies, sharp fall of GDP, and a cunning factor called recession. These
factors are worsening the situation, which in turn has compelled the national
governments to resume work in government and private offices, reopening of
production units, allow public gatherings, and allow retail and wholesale shops
to reopen. Humanity is paying high price just to keep GDP on track, which is
full of challenges and on the other hand, burgeoning recession has tied
government’s hands to effectively handle coronavirus crisis.
So, How Long the
Governments and People will have to Handle Coronavirus Crisis the Same Way?
COVID-19 vaccine is the answer to this question. But even at the
speed of fast-tracked vaccine development process, the effective and a properly
tested vaccine will take approximately 12–18 months to be prepared in abundance
and to be marketed. Studies done by the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies
on SARS-CoV-1, has been helping them fast-track the vaccine development process.
Gamaleya Research Institute, based in Moscow has surpassed all the
other players in COVID-19 vaccine market to launch first ever COVID-19 vaccine,
Sputnik V. This vaccine by the company was approved by the Russian Federation
Ministry of Health on 11th August, 2020 and this is where concerns
regarding the vaccine step in. Though Russia is ready to supply the vaccine
worldwide, experts and researchers, globally, have raised a serious concern
about the vaccine’s safety and efficacy as the vaccine Sputnik V, as of 24th
September, 2020 has not yet entered Phase III clinical trials. Gamaleya
Research Institute is being funded and supported by the Health Ministry of the
Russian Federation, through which, the player conducted two small Phase I/II
clinical trials on about 38 participants. Results for these small clinical
trials were published in The Lancet, which shows vaccine to have good safety
profile and induced strong cellular immune and humoral response in the
participants. For Phase III clinical trials, the company has planned to test
the vaccine candidate on about 40,000 people across 45 different medical
centers in Russia, which will lead the vaccine candidate towards confirmation
of high efficacy and safety.
If Sputnik V passes Phase III clinical trial, it will take the
global COVID-19 vaccine market by storm. Being the only approved and marketed
drug across the globe, Sputnik V will be in enormous demand by the countries
which have been badly hit by the coronavirus crisis which includes India,
Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Mexico, and Russia itself. North America and
specially the U.S. is skeptical about the performance of the candidate, as the
U.S. infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci had raised question over
the fast-track vaccine development approach adopted by Russia. Furthermore, in
an interview with National Geographic, Fauci have raised some serious concerns
regarding Russia proving safety and efficacy of vaccine candidate.
U.S. along with other nations including India, Germany, Britain, and
others are demanding transparent clinical trial data over vaccines performance
including its efficacy and safety. If Russia fails to satisfy these nations
with its clinical trials data, the World will have to wait longer for a new
vaccine candidate to prove its safety and efficacy. On the other hand, Sputnik
V, Gamaleya Research Institute, and Russia will lose a forever golden chance of
having to have a strong hold over the global COVID-19 vaccine market.
Countries across Europe including Spain, France, and the U.K are
experiencing the second and third waves of coronavirus spread within. This is
an alarming sign of how coronavirus can return to our lives and how important
it is to maintain social distancing and use sanitizers and masks to protect
ourselves even after elimination of coronavirus. Same as Europe, recently, New
Zealand has found new patients of coronavirus after being eliminated from the
country for more than 100 days. This tells us that, coronavirus can return to
our lives if we do not contain it effectively.
What Does WHO, Worldwide
Governmental Organizations, and Biopharmaceutical Companies are doing to Grab that
Important Spot in the Global Covid-19 Vaccine Market?
Coronavirus crisis has given rise to the intense competition of
finding the cure, which in turn has created some of the unprecedented
partnerships in the healthcare sector, worldwide. The US National Institutes of
Health (NIH) has signed partnership deal with more than 18 biopharmaceutical
companies within OWS (Operation Warp Speed) which will ultimately help
accelerate COVID-19 vaccine development process. On the other hand COVPN
(COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network) has been established which successfully combines
clinical trial networks funded by the various governmental organizations
including the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN), Infectious Diseases Clinical
Research Consortium (IDCRC), the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, HIV Prevention
Trials Network (HPTN), and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID).
For the goal to offer low-cost COVID-19 vaccines to countries, as a
part of the WHO’s ACT (Access to COVID-19 Tools) Accelerator, under COVAX
initiative, CEPI’s (Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation) candidates
from various biopharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca/University of
Oxford, University of Hong Kong, University of Queensland/CS, Institut
Pasteur/Merck/Themis, CureVac, Inovio, Moderna, Clover Biopharmaceuticals, and
Novavax are working together with vaccine manufacturers. Under OWS, to offer
funding, the U.S. government has chosen 3 highly potential candidates The
University of Oxford and AstraZeneca’s AZD1222, Pfizer and BioNTech's BNT162,
and Moderna’s mRNA-1273. It is an activity expected to fuel the run towards
finding a coronavirus cure.
How Will Global COVID-19
Vaccine Market Perform at Launch?
Players in the global COVID-19 vaccine market are investing heavily
in research and development with ongoing pressure of providing the vaccine at
affordable prices. This is expected to hamper the overall market growth to some
extent after the launch of properly tested vaccine. Initially, the market will
be majorly captured by the first launched potential candidate. With the launch
of more highly effective and safe vaccines, regional products will have high
influence over the market, as every developing and developed nation is
competing in the run for coronavirus cure.
Over the years, with the launch of preventive vaccines, the global COVID-19 vaccine market will settle down with a stable Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), which will deflect to some extent year-over-year. Till then, prevention by using masks and sanitizers is the ultimate solution to stay away from reach of SARS-CoV-2 virus. It will take us months to get used to the coronavirus crisis around us, years to consider coronavirus as a part of our lives, and decades to recover from the recession and economic losses across the globe.
