The director of the Biological Institute, Professor Shmuel Shapira, has presented an outline of the stages of his institute’s coronavirus vaccine program to the Knesset’s Committee of Science and Technology.
“During the first phase, we will be conducting tests on 100 healthy people. During the second stage, a larger number of people will be tested – around 1,000 – and in the third stage, we will be comparing two cohorts, each one comprised of 20 to 30 thousand people,” he related. “Our goal is to test both the efficacy and the safety of our vaccine.”
According to Shapira, Israel will not be the first country to develop a vaccine. “From the outset, I knew that we wouldn’t be the first – maybe we’ll be in the first ten,” he said. “But I don’t think that our goal is to be the first to get there. Rather, our goal is to provide the Israeli public with a vaccine against coronavirus, and we intend to produce a good and safe vaccine within a reasonable amount of time.”
Yesterday, Dr. Tamar Grossman, head of the Rare Diseases department at “Arcturus Therapeutics” said that her company will also soon be developing a vaccine against coronavirus.
“We have made good progress, and we’re now at an advanced stage,” she said. “We have begun clinical trials on humans, which are being conducted in Singapore, in order to test the safety and efficacy of the vaccine under development.” She added that, “The success rate we’ve seen so far has been very high – during animal trials, almost one hundred percent of the animals showed an immune response. Our vaccine is very innovative and unique. We don’t use parts of the virus or its proteins, but rather RNA, which is the genetic material that encodes the virus protein.”
Grossman expressed confidence that, “With the help of this vaccine, we will be able to prevent the disease from spreading. Animal trials have shown that it is possible to create a strong immunological response that is sustained for a long period of time.”
She noted that, “We are working in collaboration with a company that has already begun to produce our vaccine in large amounts. If everything goes according to plan, by the end of the year we will be able to manufacture millions of doses, and by the end of next year, hundreds of millions.”