Led by the Doherty Institute of Infection and Immunity, and with start-up funding from the Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services, Vax4COVID is an alliance of Australian vaccine clinical trial centres, with extensive experience and expertise in the conduct of vaccine clinical trials, including pandemic viral vaccines, formed to facilitate the conduct of Phase II trials of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates in Australia.
Trials in Healthy Adults and the Elderly
Thousands of healthy adult and elderly volunteers will be required to participate in high quality human clinical trials of the promising COVID vaccine candidates that have passed exhaustive pre-clinical (animal and laboratory) testing. As part of an ‘all-stops out’ approach, Phase I (preliminary tolerability and dosing) and Phase II studies (definitive dosing, scheduling and more safety checking) must still be conducted in countries that have good control of circulating COVID disease. Subsequent Phase III studies should be undertaken, by contrast, in countries with high levels of circulating COVID to see if the trial vaccines actually prevent disease. Australia is ideally placed to conduct Phase I and Phase II COVID vaccine clinical trials.
Alliance Centres, Supporting Institutions & Business Resources
News
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Doherty Institute commences clinical trial of Sanofi Pasteur's mRNA COVID-19 vaccine
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Phase I/II study of Spybiotech and Serum Institute of India's candidate COVID-19 vaccine commences in Melbourne
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Vax4COVID Alliance centres to evaluate COVIGEN, a needle-free, DNA-based candidate COVID-19 vaccine
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Phase I study of the University of Queensland's candidate COVID-19 vaccine expanded to include older adults
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Phase II study of Novavax's candidate COVID-19 vaccine initiated in Australia
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Australian phase I study of Novavax's candidate COVID-19 vaccine generates promising results
Scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (round blue objects) emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. SARS-CoV-2, also known as 2019-nCoV, is the virus that causes COVID-19. Source: NIH (NIAID).