Huashengtong Information, on November 26, WHO held an emergency meeting to list the B.1.1.529 COVID-19 variant strain as a "Variant of Concern" and named it Omicron.
As of now, the noteworthy variant of the new coronavirus (VOC) is the variant strain that has the greatest impact on the global epidemic,including five major strains of Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron. One-click investment in core stocks of global vaccines, free Alibaba stocks, click here to unlock trading permissions in 3 minutes.
Regarding the basic situation of the five major virus strains, the editor compiled relevant public information as follows:
Previously, relevant scientific research institutions in South Africa used the Omicron signature site nucleic acid detection kit to quickly screen the strains recently sampled in South Africa. It was found that Omicron quickly replaced the Delta strain in the 20-plus days since November. Dominance, and its prevalence has gone from 0 to 75%.
Compared with the Beta mutant strains and Delta mutant strains in the previous period, they have reached this epidemic ratio in South Africa for more than 3 months, which is much lower than the speed of Omicron.
Major vaccine companies speak out immediately
In the face of the sudden new "drug king", major vaccine companies also made an emergency call in the first place.
BioNTech and Pfizer
Pfizer and BioNTech stated that they are investigating the new variant of the new coronavirus Omicron. The two companies expect to have more experimental data within two weeks at the latest.
The two companies also said that these data will provide more information about Omicron, and if the variant spreads globally, we may need to adjust the vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech pointed out that they can adjust their mRNA vaccines within six weeks and start shipping them in batches within 100 days.
Moderna
Moderna said on Friday that the combination of Omicron mutations showed a significant potential risk of natural immunity or vaccine-induced immune weakening. The company said it will test three booster vaccine candidates against Omicron, including the development of a booster specifically for the variant strain and testing of higher dose levels of the vaccine. Moderna said that the COVID-19 vaccine against the Omicron variant may be available in early 2022.
In addition, on the 30th, the CEO of Moderna also predicted that the existing vaccines would not be able to deal with the Omicron strain. He warned that it would take several months for pharmaceutical companies to mass-produce new vaccines against the strain. Bancel believes that no (vaccine) has the same level of effective performance, which will be a substantial decline. I don't know how much it will drop because we still need to wait for data.
Johnson & Johnson
Johnson & Johnson said on Friday that it is already testing a vaccine against Omicron. Johnson &Johnson said it is closely monitoring the emergence of new variants with mutations in the COVID-19 spike protein, and is already testing the effectiveness of our vaccine against the rapidly spreading new variant first discovered in southern Africa.
AstraZeneca
AstraZeneca said it is also investigating the variant. The company said that its vaccine platform developed in collaboration with Oxford University can respond quickly to new mutations that emerge. AstraZeneca has also conducted research in the places where the variant was found, namely Botswana and Eswatini.
Kansino
According to a report from the Global Times on the 28th, CanSino Bio has begun to develop vaccines against new mutant strains. The relevant person said that given the advantages of CanSino Bio's adenovirus vector technology platform and mRNA technology platform, once it is found that the protection of existing vaccines has declined, CanSino is confident to produce a new vaccine against the mutant strain in the shortest time.
SINOVAC
On November 27th, Beijing Kexing Biotech stated that the company is highly concerned about the Omicron COVID-19 variant virus. It has collected and obtained relevant information and samples through the global partner network, and carried out evaluation and research as soon as possible to understand the effect of the Omicron virus strain on existing vaccines. And the need to develop vaccines against variant virus strains.
Kexing said that the company has mature vaccine production technology and large-scale production capacity, and has already launched vaccine development work against Gamma and Delta variant viruses. If necessary, it can quickly advance the development and mass production of new vaccines, and it is also able to guarantee the demand for vaccines.
In the face of the new "drug king", which vaccines are more effective?
The research report issued by the Soochow Securities Medical Research Team on the 29th believes that Omicron has many S protein mutations, and the protective efficacy of existing vaccines and neutralizing antibodies may be reduced, but it still has the potential to reduce mortality and severe disease rates. effect. The development of a new generation of new coronavirus vaccines is imminent, and mRNA vaccines have advantages in research and development efficiency and will become a powerful weapon against new coronavirus mutants. At the same time, some small-molecule drugs are not sensitive to mutations in the S protein of the virus, and will become the main prevention and control method in countries where the vaccination rate is not as fast as expected.
Such small molecule antiviral drugs include, for example, Merck’s Molnupiravir, Pfizer’s Paxlovid, and Pioneer Pharmaceuticals’ proxalutamide. The basic mechanism is to reduce the replication ability of the virus through blocking or mutagenesis. For example, Pfizer's antiviral drug is an enzyme needed to prevent the replication of the new coronavirus, while Merck's antiviral drug directly destroys the new coronavirus gene.
Pfizer previously released data showing that the use of the COVID-19 oral drug it has developed in conjunction with HIV drugs can reduce the risk of hospitalization or death of high-risk adults exposed to the virus by 89%. Governments of various countries are speeding up the purchase of the oral medicine.
COVID-19 oral drugs are also being developed in China, and clinical trial results will be released soon. Development Pharmaceuticals stated that it will release interim data from a multi-center Phase III clinical trial of its small molecule COVID-19 drug candidate prokruamide, including the United States, in December.