COVID-19 Vaccine Maker Says It Will Know if Treatment Works by November

The leader of drug maker¹ Moderna says the company should know in November whether its experimental COVID-19 vaccine² works.

Stephane Bancel spoke³ on the financial news network CNBC Thursday, the same day Moderna released a document that details its vaccine trial plans.

Bancel told Reuters that if its COVID-19 vaccine proves to be at least 70 percent effective, the company would seek Emergency Use Authorization⁴ (EUA) for people in high-risk groups. The high-risk groups would include healthcare workers and older people.

U.S. government officials say a vaccine candidate must show it is at least 50 percent more effective than a placebo⁵, before the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would consider it for approval.

Moderna, based in Massachusetts, has never brought a vaccine to market. But the U.S. government's Operation Warp⁶ Speed program has given the company almost $1 billion for its work on a vaccine. Moderna has a $1.5 billion agreement with the U.S. to supply COVID-19 vaccine.

In March of this year, Moderna gave the first injection of the experimental vaccine to a volunteer in Seattle, Washington. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the United States, said at the time that even if early tests go well, "you're talking about a year to a year and a half" before any vaccine could be ready for widespread use.

Vaccine candidates from AstraZeneca, Pfizer

Moderna's experimental vaccine is one of three leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates under trial in the U.S. The others are from AstraZeneca with Britain's University of Oxford⁷ and Pfizer in partnership⁸ with Germany's BioNTech.

Last week, AstraZeneca temporarily suspended its Phase 3 trial after a volunteer in Britain developed inflammation. The trial has since restarted in Britain and other countries but is still on hold in the U.S. The World Health Organization (WHO) has described that experimental treatment as probably the world's leading vaccine candidate to fight COVID-19.

In a presentation to investors⁹ on Tuesday, Pfizer said it has more than 29,000 volunteers in the Phase 3 trial of its vaccine candidate. The drug maker is looking to increase that numbers to over 40,000. It aims to add older people and more people of color, two groups especially hard hit by the disease.

Albert Bourla is head of the large American drug maker. He told CBS News that the company "will know if the product (vaccine) works or not by the end of October."

Unlike other drug makers¹⁰, Pfizer is not receiving money from the U.S. government for its vaccine research. But Bourla said Pfizer has already started to produce "hundreds of thousands of doses" of its vaccine while waiting for trial results and FDA approval.

Pressure to deliver vaccine

U.S. President Donald Trump¹¹ has long pushed for a COVID-19 vaccine to be ready before the country's November 3 elections. In August, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent a letter and documents to health officials in all 50 states asking them to be ready for a coronavirus vaccine by November 1.

The documents described two unnamed vaccine candidates that must be stored at temperatures of minus 70 and minus 20 degrees Celsius¹². The requirements appear to be those from drug-makers Pfizer and Moderna.

On Wednesday, Trump told reporters, "They're taking a tremendous risk and they're spending billions of dollars on actually making this vaccine." He added "They're at this stage where they're actually making it because they feel very confident as to the results."

In the end, it is up to Americans to decide if they have enough confidence in a future vaccine to seek it for themselves. A study in May from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that only half of Americans say they would get a COVID-19 vaccine.

Thirty-one percent of the people in the study said they were not sure. And another 20 percent said they would refuse the vaccine.

Words in This Story

placebo - n. a shot, pill, or substance that is given to patient like a drug but that has no physical effect on the patient

inflammation - n. a condition in which a part of your body becomes red, swollen¹³ and painful

dose - n. the amount of medicine or drug that is taken at one time

tremendous - adj. very large or great

stage - n. a particular point or period in the development of something

confident - adj. having a feeling or belief that you can succceed

1 maker   

n.制造者，制造商

参考例句：

• He is a trouble maker，You must be distant with him.他是个捣蛋鬼，你不要跟他在一起。
• A cabinet maker must be a master craftsman.家具木工必须是技艺高超的手艺人。

2 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 authorization   

n.授权，委任状

参考例句：

• Anglers are required to obtain prior authorization from the park keeper.垂钓者必须事先得到公园管理者的许可。
• You cannot take a day off without authorization.未经批准你不得休假。

5 placebo   

n.安慰剂；宽慰话

参考例句：

• The placebo has been found to work with a lot of different cases.人们已发现安慰剂能在很多不同的病例中发挥作用。
• The placebo effect refers to all the observable behaviors caused by placebo.安慰剂效应是指由安慰剂所引起的可观察的行为。

6 warp   

vt.弄歪，使翘曲，使不正常，歪曲，使有偏见

参考例句：

• The damp wood began to warp.这块潮湿的木材有些翘曲了。
• A steel girder may warp in a fire.钢梁遇火会变弯。

7 Oxford   

n.牛津（英国城市）

参考例句：

• At present he has become a Professor of Chemistry at Oxford.他现在已是牛津大学的化学教授了。
• This is where the road to Oxford joins the road to London.这是去牛津的路与去伦敦的路的汇合处。

8 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

9 investors   

n.投资者，出资者( investor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a con man who bilked investors out of millions of dollars 诈取投资者几百万元的骗子
• a cash bonanza for investors 投资者的赚钱机会

10 makers   

n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式）

参考例句：

• The makers of the product assured us that there had been no sacrifice of quality. 这一产品的制造商向我们保证说他们没有牺牲质量。
• The makers are about to launch out a new product. 制造商们马上要生产一种新产品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

12 Celsius   

adj.摄氏温度计的，摄氏的

参考例句：

• The temperature tonight will fall to seven degrees Celsius.今晚气温将下降到七摄氏度。
• The maximum temperature in July may be 36 degrees Celsius.七月份最高温度可能达到36摄氏度。

13 swollen   

adj.肿大的，水涨的；v.使变大，肿胀

参考例句：

• Her legs had got swollen from standing up all day.因为整天站着，她的双腿已经肿了。
• A mosquito had bitten her and her arm had swollen up.蚊子叮了她，她的手臂肿起来了。