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There are lots of talk about promising results for #COVID19 vaccines, and we will keep hearing about more to come, so I wanted to put out a few visualizations to give people some context on why "promising" does not mean "soon".
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Clinical Trials happen in phases, from 0 through 4 ( https://www.fda.gov/patients/drug-development-process/step-3-clinical-research).
If you hear "pre-clinical", that means the vaccine has not started human trials yet.
The phases are designed to test safety first, then effectiveness, so they start in a small group of people, ...
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If you hear "pre-clinical", that means the vaccine has not started human trials yet.
The phases are designed to test safety first, then effectiveness, so they start in a small group of people, ...
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...typically a dozen per "arm" inside a clinical trial (An "arm" is a group of patients receiving a specific treatment, or no treatment).
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Phase 1: test safety in a small group of people. You may measure a bit of effectiveness too.
Phase 2: test effectiveness in a small group of people
Phase 3: test effectiveness and adverse effects on a couple of thousand people
Phase 4: test on several thousands of people
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Phase 2: test effectiveness in a small group of people
Phase 3: test effectiveness and adverse effects on a couple of thousand people
Phase 4: test on several thousands of people
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This visualization shows bars measuring the the *minimum* number of months until completion of a clinical trial on a given country. The primary completion target is set by the primary investigation for the clinical trial (source http://clinicaltrials.gov )
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At this point there are no trials for vaccines (at least registered ones) for phases 3 and 4, with only China having a vaccine currently in phase 2, and that bar shows 8 months as their own estimation for completion.
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How about off-target attempts? They are typically BCG and measles vaccines being tested as generic boosters of the immune system, so they are technically clinical trials for vaccines meant for fighting COVID19, but they are not expected to create immunity.
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The Moderna vaccine that Dr. Fauci called promising?
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04283461
See where it ranks, in reverse chronological order of planned completion date for the trial.
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https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04283461
See where it ranks, in reverse chronological order of planned completion date for the trial.
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A few more screenshots, for both on-target and off-target vaccines, by country and specific trial identifier, which you can open with http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/ <trial_identifier>
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@Noahpinion, thought I could interest you in this thread and visualizations.
