The UK has secured 60 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine which has shown 89.3% efficacy against the virus in trials, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday.
The Novavax vaccine candidate has proven to be 95.6% effective against the original COVID-19 strain and 85.6% effective against the Kent variant, according to the preliminary results.
The trial involved 15,000 participants aged 18 to 84 and 27% of those were over 65, according to the US-based company.
The vaccine will be manufactured at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Billingham, Teesside, Johnson tweeted Thursday night.
"Good news that the Novavax vaccine has proved effective in UK trials. Thank you to all the volunteers who made these results possible,” he wrote.
"Our medicines regulator will now assess the vaccine, which will be made in Teesside. If approved, we have 60m doses on order."
Should the vaccine be approved by local regulators, it will be delivered in the second half of this year.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has previously approved the Pfizer/BioNTech and AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccines.
The UK rolled out a vaccine program shortly after the Pfizer vaccine received approval from local regulators and the country has so far administered the first dose to 7,447,189 “vulnerable people and those who look after them,” according to health authorities.
“Having taken part in Novavax’s vaccine trial myself, I am particularly thrilled to see such positive results,” said Britain’s Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi.
“I want to thank the thousands of trial volunteers, without whom these results would not have been possible.
“It will now be for the regulator to do its crucial work in assessing the efficacy and safety of this vaccine, but if approved, it will be a further boost to our vaccination programme,” he added.
