WEBVTT - The First Vaccine May Not Be the Best

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to Prognosis. I'm Laura Carlson. It's day one, twenty

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<v Speaker 1>eight since coronavirus was declared a global pandemic. Today's main story.

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<v Speaker 1>Much has been made about the race to develop a

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<v Speaker 1>vaccine and who will win it, But being first isn't

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<v Speaker 1>the only thing that matters in the rush to inoculate

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<v Speaker 1>US from COVID nineteen. But first, here's what happened in

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<v Speaker 1>virus News today. All of the US government programs set

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<v Speaker 1>to offset the economic hit from the coronavirus are about

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<v Speaker 1>to expire. More than two trillion dollars in government spending

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<v Speaker 1>was approved to support hard hit businesses and unemployed people

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<v Speaker 1>earlier this year. Now leaders face an urgent set of

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<v Speaker 1>decision about whether to extend history's biggest rescue effort. The

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<v Speaker 1>Trump administration wants another relief built with a price tag

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<v Speaker 1>of no more than one trillion dollars before lawmakers leave

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<v Speaker 1>for summer recess in early August. The Democrat controlled House

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<v Speaker 1>already approved additional measures worth three point five trillion dollars,

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<v Speaker 1>but Republicans, who have a Senate majority, oppose many of them.

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<v Speaker 1>New York City is ready to enter the fourth and

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<v Speaker 1>final phase of reopening Monday. Mayor Bill de Blasio said zoos,

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<v Speaker 1>botanical gardens, and outdoor movie production can resume, but indoor dining,

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<v Speaker 1>museums and malls will remain closed. Hospitalizations in the state

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<v Speaker 1>of New York dropped to a four month low and

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<v Speaker 1>fewer than one percent of residents tested Thursday where positive

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<v Speaker 1>for coronavirus. New York was once the epicenter of the

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<v Speaker 1>U S crisis, and finally, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp's edict

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<v Speaker 1>forbidding local governments to mandate mask wearing capped a week

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<v Speaker 1>of turmoil in the state. Although still lagging behind Florida, Texas,

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<v Speaker 1>and Arizona, George's COVID nineteen cases are surging. On Thursday,

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<v Speaker 1>Kemp's administration followed his mask voiding order with a lawsuit

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<v Speaker 1>seeking to block Atlanta's requirement. It was another example of

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<v Speaker 1>him hindering local efforts, making him an outlier among southern

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<v Speaker 1>governors who have rolled back reopenings in the face of

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<v Speaker 1>surging infection rates. And now for today's main story, an

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<v Speaker 1>experimental COVID vaccine from Australia joined almost two dozen candidates

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<v Speaker 1>in clinical trials this week. Development Wise, it's months behind

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<v Speaker 1>some of the front runners, but Bloomberg Senior editor Jason

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<v Speaker 1>Gale explains that speed isn't everything when it comes to

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<v Speaker 1>fighting the pandemic YEA, the global effort to vaccinate humanity

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<v Speaker 1>against the coronavirus is a bit like a Formula one race.

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<v Speaker 1>There are all kinds of teams and various models in

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<v Speaker 1>the race against the pandemic, but in this case, the

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<v Speaker 1>winner might necessarily be the fastest. We need vaccines that

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<v Speaker 1>are not only safe and effective at protecting against COVID nineteen,

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<v Speaker 1>we also want ones that provide durable protection, hopefully measured

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<v Speaker 1>in years, not months. We also want munizations that are

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<v Speaker 1>affordable and easy to administer, and can be manufactured on

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<v Speaker 1>a massive scale so that all seven point eight billion

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<v Speaker 1>of US can be protected. Meeting all of these requirements

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<v Speaker 1>is a tough task, and speed is only part of

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<v Speaker 1>the challenge. You probably already know some of the teams

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<v Speaker 1>in the COVID vaccine race, added front to Moderner and

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<v Speaker 1>its partner, the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

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<v Speaker 1>Then there's the University of Oxford and Astra's Etiquette, plus

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<v Speaker 1>Merk Glaxo Smith Klein and Johnson and Johnson are there,

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<v Speaker 1>along with Sinovac and can Sino biological speedy contenters from China,

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<v Speaker 1>just to name a few. In fact, as of July thirteenth,

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<v Speaker 1>the World Health Organization counted twenty three candidates and human

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<v Speaker 1>clinical trials plus one seven in earlier preclinical studies. Time

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<v Speaker 1>will tell which team and whose scientific approach will prevail.

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<v Speaker 1>One recent addition to the Clinical Trial League is the

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<v Speaker 1>University of Queensland. Here in Australia, it's known as u Q.

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<v Speaker 1>So the University Ofquensland has a has a rich history.

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<v Speaker 1>It's where over a hundred years old. It has particularly

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<v Speaker 1>rich history in medicine, and I guess everybody would know

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<v Speaker 1>about the cartosail vaccine. This is Professor Paul Young. He's

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<v Speaker 1>the head of the University of Queensland School of Chemistry

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<v Speaker 1>and Molecular Biosciences. Ucue's pioneering research almost thirty years ago

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<v Speaker 1>led to the human papaloma vaccine that's protected millions of

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<v Speaker 1>women against cervical cancer. More recently, UQ scientists have broken

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<v Speaker 1>ground on another aspect of vaccine science. They call it

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<v Speaker 1>the molecular clap. The biology is a little complicated in essence,

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<v Speaker 1>some viruses like the coronavirus, change their appearance after they

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<v Speaker 1>latch onto a seller trying to infect it enables these

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<v Speaker 1>pathogens to evade detection by the immune system, and that's

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<v Speaker 1>not good. So Paul's team fiking out a way of

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<v Speaker 1>training the immune system to recognize the virus early before

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<v Speaker 1>it's infected cells. It's something they've been working on for

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<v Speaker 1>almost a decade. We applied it to influenza, we applied

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<v Speaker 1>it to a bowler, to mers, another coronavirus similar to

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<v Speaker 1>COVID nineteen, mumps, measles, so a wide range of different

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<v Speaker 1>viruses that we demonstrated that this technology could could work with,

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<v Speaker 1>and we took a number of those through into animal

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<v Speaker 1>protection studies and showed they induced a good immune response

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<v Speaker 1>and and could afford protection to those animals who are

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<v Speaker 1>challenged with live virus. One of the good things about

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<v Speaker 1>the molecular clamp is that it can be tailored to

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<v Speaker 1>work against a number of different diseases, including ones we

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<v Speaker 1>don't yet know about. That made it attractive to the

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<v Speaker 1>Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations or SEPPI, which gave Paul

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<v Speaker 1>and his team fifteen million dollars to continue developing the

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<v Speaker 1>Molecular Clamp Platform. SEPPI is a foundation set up in

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<v Speaker 1>two thousand and seventeen with funding from the Bill and

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<v Speaker 1>Melinda Gates Foundation, the governments of Norway and India, and

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<v Speaker 1>the Welcome Trust. It works to accelerate the development of

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<v Speaker 1>vaccines against emerging effects as diseases and to make them

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<v Speaker 1>broadly accessible. The objective of the grant was to develop

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<v Speaker 1>three vaccines as demonstrators of our platform. An influenza A,

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<v Speaker 1>respirators in city or virus one so we could compare

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<v Speaker 1>our platform with other approaches, but also an emerging disease,

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<v Speaker 1>which just happened to be MERS. We chose MERS quite

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<v Speaker 1>fortuitously because obviously as a coronavirus, what we learned with

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<v Speaker 1>MERS we were able to apply to to COVID when

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<v Speaker 1>it came on the scene. In fact, even before they

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<v Speaker 1>knew that the coronavirus was going to cause a pandemic,

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<v Speaker 1>they started work on a vaccine against it, in part

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<v Speaker 1>to see if they could. We didn't know how far

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<v Speaker 1>we'd take that process. We just wanted to give out,

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<v Speaker 1>give ourselves a little bit of a stress test ourselves,

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<v Speaker 1>I have to say, like many people back in early January,

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<v Speaker 1>no one anticipated that size Kobe two would spread as

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<v Speaker 1>far as it did, or as far as it has

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<v Speaker 1>and still spreading globally and having the impact that it's had.

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<v Speaker 1>A vaccine candidate was constructed within twenty four hours of

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<v Speaker 1>the virus is genetic sequence being published. Over the next

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<v Speaker 1>three to four weeks, we tested about two hundred and

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<v Speaker 1>fifty different variants of that and within that four week

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<v Speaker 1>period we've chosen our lead candidate. But also within that period,

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<v Speaker 1>in fact, it was only about ten days after we

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<v Speaker 1>got the sequence, SEPPI got in touch with us to

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<v Speaker 1>say that they would like to trigger us as one

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<v Speaker 1>of the groups that they would support in developing a vaccine.

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<v Speaker 1>All the way through. Starting last Monday, about one and

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<v Speaker 1>twenty adult volunteers in Brisbane are participating in an initial

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<v Speaker 1>study of the vaccine to check that it's safe and

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<v Speaker 1>induces a sufficiently strong immune response. We're highly confident because

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<v Speaker 1>we've already gone through genicity studies in mice and shown

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<v Speaker 1>that our vaccine induces extremely high levels of neutralizing anybody,

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<v Speaker 1>higher than any I've seen in other corresponding vaccine approaches.

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<v Speaker 1>U Q delayed studying human trials until lab studies demonstrating

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<v Speaker 1>safety and efficacy were completed. In the meantime, it's worked

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<v Speaker 1>with various research groups and Melbourne based pharmaceutical company CSL

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<v Speaker 1>to accelerate manufacturing. In fact, CSL began figuring out how

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<v Speaker 1>to make large amounts of the vaccine material well before

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<v Speaker 1>the experimental shot had entered initial human studies, just because

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<v Speaker 1>we need the program to go as rapidly as possible.

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<v Speaker 1>This is Dr Andrew Cuthbertson. He's an executive director at CSL,

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<v Speaker 1>and until a few weeks ago, he was also the

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<v Speaker 1>company's chief scientist. CSL is one of the world's biggest

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<v Speaker 1>makers of blood based therapies. It's also the parent company

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<v Speaker 1>of Securists, which makes flu vaccines. We believe we could

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<v Speaker 1>make somewhere between fifteen to fifty million doses by the

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<v Speaker 1>end of this calendar year, and we could make something

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<v Speaker 1>like a hundred million doses over the next of months. Now.

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<v Speaker 1>I think we will have those millions of doses available,

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<v Speaker 1>but they won't be available for mass vaccination of the

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<v Speaker 1>community until we've generated the clinical trial data to support

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<v Speaker 1>a license for the vaccine. In technical terms, the candidate

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<v Speaker 1>vaccine contains a recombinant protein stabilized into a trimeric form

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<v Speaker 1>of the spikes on the outside of the sascovy two virus.

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<v Speaker 1>Plus it has securisies M fifty nine adjuvant that makes

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<v Speaker 1>flu shots more effective in the elderly. The chemical is

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<v Speaker 1>designed to stimulate a better immune response to vaccines. Andrew

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<v Speaker 1>says it will bolster production of so called helper T

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<v Speaker 1>cells as well as reduced the amount of vaccine needed

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<v Speaker 1>and eat shot and therefore we can potentially make more doses,

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<v Speaker 1>which may be critical. Never have so many scientists work

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<v Speaker 1>so hard at the same time to produce a vaccine

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<v Speaker 1>against a completely new virus. The stakes are high and

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<v Speaker 1>some of the risks. Being fast is definitely an advantage,

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<v Speaker 1>but the real winners will be those who produce a

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<v Speaker 1>safe and effective humanization that can save the most lives

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<v Speaker 1>from this insidious disease. Lucky for us, we've never had

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<v Speaker 1>so many teams using so many different approaches racing to

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<v Speaker 1>beat a single common enemy. That was Jason Gale in Melbourne.

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<v Speaker 1>And that's it for our show today. For coverage of

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<v Speaker 1>the outbreak from one bureaus around the world, visit bloomberg

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<v Speaker 1>dot com, slash Coronavirus and if you like the show,

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<v Speaker 1>please leave us a review and a rating on Apple

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<v Speaker 1>Podcasts or Spotify. It's the best to help more listeners

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<v Speaker 1>find our global reporting. The Prognosis Daily edition is produced

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<v Speaker 1>by topor Foreheaz, Jordan Gaspourey, Magnus Hendrickson and me Laura Carlson.

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<v Speaker 1>Today's main story was reported by Jason Gale. Original music

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<v Speaker 1>by Leo Sidrin. Our editors are Rick Shine and Francesca Levi.

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<v Speaker 1>Francesca Levi is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. Thanks for listening.