A new Covid vaccine has been approved for use in the UK by regulators.
It is manufactured by Valneva, using more traditional technology - similar to how polio and flu shots are made.
It contains a whole copy of the virus which has been inactivated, so that it can't cause the disease but does teach the body how to fight it.
The UK was due to receive 100 million doses of the jab, but the government cancelled the deal in September due to a "breach of obligations"
[ Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/health-61104594 ]
I’ve no idea what is happening with supply but there are a couple of things that peaked my interest…
1 - It is being reported in a few places including this article that “It outperformed the AstraZeneca vaccine on this measure in head-to-head tests”. The Valneva press release related to that is here - https://valneva.com/press-release/valne ... e-vla2001/
2 - It’s an inactivated whole vaccine. From my understanding that has potential advantages and disadvantages. An advantage is that by exposing the body to all 4 structural proteins it generates a broader range of antibody and T cell responses compared to the spike-only responses from the current mRNA and adenoviral vector vaccines. The disadvantage is that it won’t be as quick to repurpose for new variants compared to particularly the mRNA vaccines since it is a live virus that needs to be grown (and then subsequently inactivated of course).
A few places discuss another potential additional advantage of it being a whole inactivated virus vaccine that, being a more traditional vaccine technology, it might assuage the fears of at least some of the remaining vaccine hesitant population. Personally I am extremely sceptical of that claim but I suppose we’ll see if that plays out in practice in places that do roll out this vaccine. My hunch is that people who have not been persuadable by now are either genuine anti-vaxers or would still have concerns despite the different technology but time will tell on that one I suppose.
I suspect like many the final bit of my very brief first take research about what this means was to Google “Valneva vaccine omicron” and that pulled up this Valneva press release from 20 Jan 2022….
Sera from 30 participants in the Phase 1/2 trial VLA2001-201 were used in a pseudovirus assay to analyze neutralization of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 virus as well as the Delta and Omicron variants.
All 30 samples (100%) presented neutralizing antibodies against the ancestral virus and Delta variant, and 26 samples (87%) presented neutralizing antibodies against the Omicron variant. The mean fold reduction of neutralization relative to the ancestral virus was 2.7-fold for Delta and 16.7-fold for Omicron.
[ Source: https://valneva.com/press-release/valne ... n-variant/ ]
I can’t remember how that compares with other vaccines but I seem to remember that the fold reduction of the AZ vaccine was really bad for antibody neutralisation against Omicron vs ancestral strain but I’m not sure if that was after 2 or 3 doses. Note that the Valneva study was after 3 doses - “ Preliminary laboratory studies demonstrate that three doses of Valneva’s inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate VLA2001 induced neutralization of the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529 lineage)” - and of course there is far more to consider than simply neutralising antibodies.
Good to see another weapon in the armoury.
- Julian