Huntsville researcher says coronavirus vaccine not likely in 2020

Huntsville researcher says coronavirus vaccine not likely to be ready in 2020

There are now 3 coronavirus vaccine trials on the final phase of testing.

But non have been approved as more than 140 teams of researchers working to develop on a safe and effective coronavirus vaccine.

But one question we have - is when will it be ready.?

Waay 31's max cohan spoke with dr. neil lamb of the hudson-alpha institute for biotechnology who walked us through what needs to happen before we have one.

"right now, dr. neil lamb says we are faced with a challenge between speed in trying to save lives with the vaccine - and having the right answers.

Currently he says there are about 130 vaccine candidates in early stage trials, and more than 20 that have already began human trials."

"when you think about that kind of speed, that is several years worth of progress really condensed down into 5 or 6 months."

Although he says the process is already significantly expedited, doctor lamb says he doesn't believe people will be rolling up their sleeves for a coronavirus vaccine this year.

"i think some folks will probably be in large-scale phase 3 clinical trials this fall, but that's going to be a tiny overall fraction of us.

But i do think, in 2021, we should see multiple successful candidates."

He said a lot of times - vaccines frequently look promising in early stages but falter at the end.

Lamb also said there could be more than one answer to the pandemic.

He told me he believes there will have to be multiple vaccines available to protect individuals and populations with different health needs "i think its going to be less about is this the one that checks all the right boxes, versus we need a toolkit, a set of vaccines with enough data around them to be able to say this seems to be the right one for you."

But lamb says putting together that tool box requires clinical trials involve a diverse group of people.

"diverse in terms of their age, in terms of their underlying risk factors, in terms of their ethnicity, where they come from around the world, and that's where it's potentially going to become challenging, to make sure that you are appropriately representing the world in these trials."

"reporting in huntsville, max cohan, waay 31 news."