Novavax expands late-stage UK trial for COVID-19 vaccine candidate to 15,000 volunteers

Novavax Inc (NASDAQ:NVAX) announced it has expanded the phase 3 of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate to 15,000 volunteers in the UK. The US pharma company said increasing the number of participants will shorten the process. READ: The runners in the COVID-19 vaccine race So far it has enrolled 5,500 participants to date and expects to complete the recruitment by the end of November. Depending on the overall infection rate in the country, interim data are expected early in the first quarter 2021. Meanwhile, the phase 3 of trials in the US and Mexico is planned to begin by end of November, involving up to 30,000 participants across the two countries, with proportional representation among diverse populations most vulnerable to COVID-19 distributed across race/ethnicity, age and those living with co-morbidities. The firm said it has made significant progress in large-scale manufacturing but experienced delays in meeting the original timeline. Novavax is due to present data from its ongoing Phase 1/2 clinical trial, including new Phase 2 reactogenicity data, on October 30 in the US. ‘Reactogenicity’ indicates the common, expected adverse effects produced by a vaccine during clinical trials, such as fever and sore arm. Shares shot up 6% to US$92.55 when the market opened on Tuesday.