The global fight- how close are Pfizer competitors to producing a vaccine of their own?

As the pandemic presses on and uncertainty looms, many questions surround the covid vaccines we have in distribution at the moment, the ones that have passed regulations and the prospects of new ones.

Three of the most common ones that have already been passed for use and are currently in distribution in the UK are the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, The Moderna vaccine and the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

Two out of the three are similar, and one is slightly different; however, they effectively do the same job. Yet, the need and want for vaccines has created a pharmaceutical shift, pressuring other companies also to develop vaccines.

Here's a look at a few of the contenders.

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson and Johnson have begun conducting page three trails for their covid-19 vaccine. It is an investigational trial for Janssen Covid-19 vaccine. The trail has been paused due to the serious medical incident experienced by a candidate. However, no exact cause had been found. The company has also found no evidence that directly links the medical issues with the vaccine.

The trail is now fully enrolled with an estimated 45,000 adult participants making Jhonson and Jhonson history as their single-dose ENSEMBLE trail has been the fastest enrolled trial for them ever, securing the participants in less than four months.

Emergent BioSolutions Inc

Emergent BioSolutions are working on developing potential hyperimmune therapies. These products are produced by using plasma obtained from animals, and people who have high levels and amounts of antibodies to organisms such as viruses. COVID-Human Immune Globulin is being developed as a human plasma-derived therapy that can work as a potential candidate to help treat severe Covid-19 patients who are hospitalised or at high risk.

Emergents have collaborated with many other bodies to help produce products to help battle human disease as a whole. Their hyperimmune manufacturing platforms have also been used to manufacture several products that have received FDA approval. These products include anthrax exposure, smallpox vaccine complications and botulism.

Merck

Mark has collaborated with IAVI and plans to acquire Themis Bioscience. This collaboration and unique position will allow them to gain knowledge and a potential vaccine thanks to Themis Bioscience who focus on vaccines and immune-modulation therapies for infectious diseases. This included covid-19. They have also collaborated with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics to develop a novel oral antiviral candidate for the treatment of covid-19.

Through an array of collaboration and their own working background knowledge, Merck is confident they will be able to produce a novel way, maybe even using smartphones to vaccinate patients and people from the virus. Primarily through the learning of their many collaborations. However, there have been no talks of trials which means they are not as close as some of the others, but they seem to be looking for alternative injection vaccines that mimic Polio drops.

Will the rush to create vaccines do more harm than good?

Vaccines are only successful if they are able to safeguard and work well. The race to make the first vaccine could mean the developed vaccines may offer short-lived protection. Vaccines have key characteristics, including immunisation, temperature stability and rapid scale-up manufacturing to help vaccinate as many as possible.

Many have claimed that the first-generation vaccine may not be as good as pharmaceutical companies rush due to the pressure of getting them rolled out as fast as possible. Traditionally, trials and participants would need to be monitored for at least five years. Doing so will give them a better picture of how the vaccine works and cover many long or short-term side effects.

Will pharma companies make bumper profits from this?

Many governments worldwide have pledged to buy millions of doses of the covid-19 vaccine, which means that many pharmaceutical organisations will be busy fulfilling these orders in months to follow. This means pharma companies will most definitely profit from these vaccines. Those organisations that are selling to countries with deeper pockets will begin to see more significant returns on their investments, which will most definitely make bumper profits.

Vaccines that have been approved currently are under contract. Once those contracts are fulfilled, it's hard to determine which way the vaccine landscape will go. Will it be a case of not many needing the vaccine, and the price of the vaccine will go down. Or will we continuously keep needing the vaccine due to its short-lived immunity? AstraZeneca is one pharmaceutical organisation that claims the cost of their vaccine will remain the same as long as their expenses are covered.

The pandemic has most definitely affected the creation and development of other vaccines and medication to different conditions. For example, BioNTechwas working on a vaccine produced to help skin cancer and Moderna is pursuing the avenue to use an RNA-based vaccine for ovarian cancer. Both of which have been put on the back burner due to covid. The end of the pandemic for some countries is in sight and while others are still in their lockdown, only time will tell how long it will all go on for. However, as many more variations of the vaccine come to the surface, there's a good chance the Pfizer vaccine could be old news in months to come as its competitors come crashing forward.