Coronavirus Vaccine Tracker
By Carl ZimmerJonathan CorumSui-Lee Wee and Matthew Kristoffersen
PHASE 1
PHASE 1/2
PHASE 2
PHASE 2/3
PHASE 3
AUTHORIZED
APPROVED
ABANDONED
36
18
17
10
42
21
12
17
Vaccines
testing safety
and dosage
Vaccines
in expanded
safety trials
Vaccines
in large-scale
efficacy tests
Vaccines
in early or
limited use
Vaccines
approved
for full use
Vaccines
abandoned
after trials
Combined
trials
Combined
trials
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
AUTHORIZED
APPROVED
ABANDONED
54
45
52
21
12
17
Vaccines
testing safety
and dosage
Vaccines
in expanded
safety trials
Vaccines
in large-scale
efficacy tests
Vaccines
in early or
limited use
Vaccines
approved
for full use
Vaccines
abandoned
after trials
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
54
45
52
Vaccines
testing safety
and dosage
Vaccines
in expanded
safety trials
Vaccines
in large-scale
efficacy tests
AUTHORIZED
APPROVED
ABANDONED
21
12
17
Vaccines
in early or
limited use
Vaccines
approved
for full use
Vaccines
abandoned
after trials
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
54
45
52
Vaccines
testing safety
and dosage
Vaccines
in expanded
safety trials
Vaccines
in large-scale
efficacy tests
AUTHORIZED
APPROVED
ABANDONED
21
12
17
Vaccines
in early or
limited use
Vaccines
approved
for full use
Vaccines
abandoned
after trials
This tracker is no longer being updated. It followed the development of Covid vaccines from early 2020 through August 2022. More than 120 clinical trials were underway at that time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains a list of Covid vaccines that are authorized or approved in the United States.
Vaccines typically require years of research and testing before reaching the clinic, but in 2020, scientists embarked on a race to produce safe and effective coronavirus vaccines in record time.
Leading vaccines | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Developer | How It Works | Phase | Status | |
Pfizer-BioNTech | mRNA | 3 | Approved in U.S., other countries. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Sinopharm | Inactivated | 3 | Approved in China, Bahrain. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Oxford-AstraZeneca | ChAdOx1 | 23 | Approved in Brazil, India. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Sinovac | Inactivated | 3 | Approved in China. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Moderna | mRNA | 3 | Approved in U.S., Canada, Switzerland. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Novavax | Protein | 3 | Approved in Canada, South Korea. Emergency use in several countries. |
|
Bharat Biotech | Inactivated | 3 | Approved in India. Emergency use in other countries. |
|
Johnson & Johnson | Ad26 | 3 | Approved in Canada. Limited in U.S. Emergency use in many countries. |
|
Baylor-Biological E | Protein | 3 | Emergency use in India, Botswana. | |
Gamaleya | Ad26, Ad5 | 3 | Approved in Russia. Emergency use in many countries. |
Below is a list of all vaccines that have reached trials in humans. For an explanation of virus variants and mutations, see our Coronavirus Variant Tracker. For treatments for Covid-19, see our Coronavirus Drug and Treatment Tracker. For an explanation of leading vaccines, see How Nine Covid-19 Vaccines Work.
The Vaccine Testing Process
The development cycle of a vaccine, from lab to clinic.
PRECLINICAL TESTING: Scientists test a new vaccine on cells and then give it to animals such as mice or monkeys to see if it produces an immune response.
PHASE 1 SAFETY TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to a small number of people to test safety and dosage, as well as to confirm that it stimulates the immune system.
PHASE 2 EXPANDED TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to hundreds of people split into groups, such as children and the elderly, to see if the vaccine acts differently in them. These trials further test the vaccine’s safety.
PHASE 3 EFFICACY TRIALS: Scientists give the vaccine to thousands of people and wait to see how many become infected, compared with volunteers who received a placebo. These trials can determine if the vaccine protects against the coronavirus, measuring what’s known as the efficacy rate. Phase 3 trials are also large enough to reveal evidence of relatively rare side effects.
EARLY OR LIMITED APPROVAL: Many countries have procedures for providing emergency authorizations for vaccines, based on preliminary evidence that they are safe and effective. In addition, some countries such as China and Russia began administering vaccines before detailed Phase 3 trial data was made public. Experts have warned of serious risks from jumping ahead of these results.
APPROVAL: Regulators review the complete trial results and plans for a vaccine’s manufacturing, and decide whether to give it full approval.
COMBINED PHASES: One way to accelerate vaccine development is to combine phases. Some vaccines are now in Phase 1/2 trials, for example, which this tracker would count as both Phase 1 and Phase 2.
PAUSED or ABANDONED: If investigators observe worrying symptoms in volunteers, they can pause the trial. After an investigation, the trial may resume or be abandoned. Trials may also be abandoned if they indicate a vaccine isn’t effective against Covid-19.
Preclinical Vaccines
Phase 1 Vaccines
Phase 2 Vaccines
Phase 3 Vaccines
Authorized or Approved Vaccines
Abandoned Vaccines
Genetic Vaccines
Vaccines that deliver one or more of the coronavirus’s own genes into our cells to provoke an immune response.
RNA vaccine
DNA vaccine
RNA vaccine
DNA vaccine
RNA vaccine
DNA vaccine
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN U.S., ELSEWHERE
EMERGENCY USE IN MANY COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Comirnaty (also known as tozinameran or BNT162b2)
Efficacy: 91%
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Freezer storage only at –13°F to 5°F (–25°C to –15°C)
On Nov. 9, 2020, New York-based Pfizer and the German company BioNTech made history by announcing that their coronavirus vaccine had an efficacy rate of over 90 percent, far surpassing expectations. It was the first time anyone had found such evidence. Just over a month later, on Dec. 11, the Food and Drug Administration granted the vaccine, known as Comirnaty, the first emergency use authorization ever given by the United States to a coronavirus vaccine. On Aug. 23, 2021, the F.D.A. granted full approval to Comirnaty for people 16 and older, and it now has an emergency authorization for children as young as six months. Comrinaty received full approval for adolescents 12 and older on July 8, 2022.
As of July 3, 2022, Pfizer had delivered more than 3.6 billion doses of Comirnaty to 180 countries and territories.
Through the summer and into the fall, the world closely followed the Pfizer-BioNTech trial. In September, Dr. Albert Bourla, the chief executive of Pfizer, said that as soon as October the Phase 3 trial would deliver enough results to show if the vaccine worked or not. President Trump touted their progress, hinting that a vaccine would be available before the election. But on Oct. 27, Dr. Bourla announced that the volunteers in the trial had yet to experience enough cases of Covid-19 to determine if the vaccines work. Finally, on Nov. 9, Pfizer and BioNTech released their preliminary analysis of the first 94 cases of Covid-19 in their volunteers.
Over the next month, Pfizer and BioNTech released more data on more cases. On Dec. 8 the FDA released their independent analysis of the clinical trials. They determined that Comirnaty has an efficacy rate of 95 percent. While Comirnaty caused no serious side effects, it frequently caused short-lived fatigue, fever, and muscle aches.
In Israel, which took the lead in mass vaccination, researchers found that the vaccine was as effective in the real world as the trials had indicated. A study published by the Centers for Disease Control in March found that the vaccine is 91.3% effective after the second dose.
Subsequent trials showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was safe and effective for children as young as five. But in children aged 2 to 5, the dosage did not produce high levels of antibodies, and so Pfizer announced on Dec. 17, 2021, that it would try again in a trial using three doses instead of two. In May 2022, Pfizer announced that the extra dose produced favorable responses.
In June 2022, Pfizer reached an agreement with the United States for a new delivery of vaccines in preparation for an anticipated winter surge. The U.S. government agreed to pay $3.2 billion for 105 million doses.
While Comirnaty has proven highly effective, it was initially a challenging vaccine to distribute because it had to be kept frozen at –94°F (–70°C). On Feb. 19, 2021, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they could keep the vaccine stable at –25°C to –15°C (–13°F to 5°F).
On Dec. 8, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that the Omicron variant greatly reduced the ability of vaccine antibodies to neutralize the coronavirus. However, results from two lab studies, released on Jan. 24, 2022, suggested that three doses of the vaccine were able to generate antibodies against Omicron. And epidemiological studies show that three doses of Comirnaty are highly effective at preventing serious Covid from Omicron infections. Pfizer and BioNTech launched a trial of an Omicron-specific vaccine on Jan. 25, but delays have kept the companies from deploying the vaccine, they said on Feb. 16. Results from trials suggest that the vaccine is effective at protecting adults from Omicron, the companies said on June 25. They launched a Phase 2 trial of the Omicron-specific vaccine on July 27.
On June 15, the companies said that the European Medicines Agency had launched its review of a version of its vaccine adapted against variants. Pfizer and BioNTech applied to the F.D.A. for emergency use authorization of the vaccine on Aug. 22.
As the Delta variant fueled a new surge of cases in Israel, the country began providing a third dose of Comirnaty as a booster. Other countries followed suit. An Israeli study published on March 16, 2022, found that a fourth dose lifted antibody levels once again, but it may only offer marginal benefits for young adults compared to getting just three shots.
The F.D.A. expanded its emergency authorization to include a third dose of Comirnaty in certain immunocompromised adults on Aug. 13. In November 2021, the F.D.A. authorized the Comirnaty booster for all adults 18 and older. Health officials expanded that authorization to 16- and 17-year olds the following month, and then to children 12 and older in January 2022. In May it further expanded its booster authorization to children as young as five.
On March 29, the F.D.A. authorized a fourth dose of Comirnaty in those aged 50 and older and certain immunocompromised people to protect against emerging variants.
Results from a trial in children aged 5 through 11, released on April 14, 2022, suggest that a third dose of the vaccine produced substantial antibodies against the Omicron variant. Pfizer has asked the F.D.A. to expand the emergency use authorization for boosters down to age 5. On Aug. 31, 2022, the F.D.A. authorized Pfizer’s latest booster, a combination of RNA for the original coronavirus and BA.5.
For more details, see How the Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Works and How Pfizer Makes Its Covid-19 Vaccine.
Approved for use in: Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, United States.
Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bonaire, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brunei, Cabo Verde, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Côte d’Ivoire, Curaçao, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, European Union, Faroe Islands, French Polynesia, Gabon, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Hong Kong, Iceland, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Malta, Martinique, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Mongolia, Nepal, New Caledonia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Niue, Norway, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Qatar, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Serbia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Africa, South Korea, St. Maarten, Sudan, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turks and Caicos, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay, Vatican, Vietnam, West Bank, Zambia. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Recommended for emergency use by the Caribbean Regulatory System.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
SWITZERLAND
CANADA
JAPAN
MONGOLIA
ALGERIA
U.S.
PHILIPPINES
IRAQ
BAHRAIN
NIGERIA
SAUDI
ARABIA
MEXICO
BRAZIL
ECUADOR
BOTSWANA
SINGAPORE
AUSTRALIA
PERU
NEW
ZEALAND
SOUTH
AFRICA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
CANADA
MONGOLIA
JAPAN
LIBYA
U.S.
IRAQ
PHILIPPINES
BAHRAIN
NIGERIA
SAUDI
ARABIA
MEXICO
BRAZIL
BOTSWANA
SINGAPORE
AUSTRALIA
PERU
NEW
ZEALAND
ARGENTINA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
CANADA
JAPAN
ALGERIA
U.S.
PHILIPPINES
BAHRAIN
MEXICO
SAUDI
ARABIA
BRAZIL
BOTSWANA
SINGAPORE
PERU
NEW
ZEALAND
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccine
CANADA
U.S.
MEXICO
BRAZIL
PERU
ARGENTINA
NEW
ZEALAND
CHILE
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
MONGOLIA
JAPAN
ALGERIA
PHILIPPINES
BAHRAIN
SAUDI
ARABIA
BOTSWANA
SINGAPORE
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN U.S., ELSEWHERE
EMERGENCY USE IN MANY COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: mRNA-1273 or Spikevax
Efficacy: Preventing Covid-19 illness: 93.2%. Preventing severe disease: 98.2%.
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: 30 days with refrigeration, 6 months at –4°F (–20°C)
On Dec. 18, 2020, the F.D.A. gave emergency use authorization for a vaccine made by the Boston-based company Moderna. The Moderna vaccine, known as Spikevax or mRNA-1273, was the second to be authorized for adults 18 and older by the F.D.A., coming a week after Comirnaty, the vaccine made by Pfizer and BioNTech. In 2021, Moderna shipped over 800 million doses worldwide. The F.D.A. gave full approval to Spikevax on Jan. 31, 2022, and it is now authorized for children as young as six months.
The United States government bankrolled Moderna’s efforts, providing nearly $1 billion in support. In partnership with the National Institutes of Health, they found that Spikevax protects monkeys from the coronavirus.
On Nov. 16, Moderna announced that the first preliminary data demonstrated that the vaccine provided strong protection against Covid-19. In a paper published in September 2021, researchers reported that the efficacy of the vaccine at preventing Covid-19 illness was 93.2 percent. The efficacy of the vaccine in preventing severe disease was 98.2 percent.
On May 25, 2021, Moderna announced that the vaccine safely provided strong protection to children as young as 12. On Sept. 22, an NYU study suggested that Pfizer and Moderna vaccine doses which were administered to pregnant women later brought about a high amount of antibodies in their newborns. And on Oct. 25, Moderna said that the vaccine produced a powerful immune response in children aged 6 through 11. Positive results pushed Moderna to announce that it would apply for emergency use authorization in children younger than six on March 23, 2022.
However, the first Moderna boosters to go into use were simply a third dose of the original vaccine. Results from a trial of a third Moderna shot in adults who received an organ transplant suggested that the booster improved their immune response — a finding that led the F.D.A. to authorize the booster shot in that population. The company then ran a trial on healthy volunteers and found that a booster of the original strain raised their production of antibodies against all major variants.
On Oct. 20, the F.D.A. authorized Moderna boosters for people over the age of 65 and those with weakened immune systems or greater risk of infection due to their work. In November 2021, the F.D.A. authorized the Moderna booster for all adults 18 and older. Moderna asked the F.D.A. for authorization for a fourth dose in adults 18 and older in March 2022. On March 29, the F.D.A. authorized the fourth dose in those 50 and older and certain immunocompromised people.
Meanwhile Moderna continued to experiment with variant-specific boosters. On June 8, 2022, they announced that an Omicron-specific booster produced a strong increase in antibodies against the variant. The company said on June 22 that the booster also works against newly evolved forms of the Omicron variant called BA.4 and BA.5. On July 29, Moderna announced a deal with the United States government to provide 66 million booster shots, containing RNA for the original spike protein, as well as one shared by BA.4 and BA.5.
Moderna’s Omicron booster won conditional approval from the United Kingdom on Aug. 15, 2022. The company said in an Aug. 23 statement that it had completed its application to the F.D.A. for approval. On Aug. 31, 2022, the F.D.A. authorized Moderna’s latest booster, a combination of RNA for the original coronavirus and BA.5.
For more details, see How Moderna’s Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: United States, Canada, Switzerland.
Emergency use in: Andorra, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Botswana, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Curacao, Egypt, European Union, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Ghana, Greenland, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Liechtenstein, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Saba, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saint Martin, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Singapore, Sint Eustatius, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Vietnam, West Bank. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
Moderna vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
SWITZERLAND
CANADA
JAPAN
MONGOLIA
U.S.
EGYPT
NIGERIA
VIETNAM
MEXICO
INDIA
SINGAPORE
AUSTRALIA
BOTSWANA
PERU
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Moderna vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
SWITZERLAND
CANADA
MONGOLIA
U.S.
EGYPT
NIGERIA
MEXICO
VIETNAM
INDIA
AUSTRALIA
BOTSWANA
PERU
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Moderna
vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
SWITZERLAND
CANADA
MONGOLIA
U.S.
EGYPT
MEXICO
INDIA
BOTSWANA
AUSTRALIA
PERU
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Moderna
vaccine
CANADA
U.S.
MEXICO
ARGENTINA
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
SWITZERLAND
MONGOLIA
EGYPT
INDIA
BOTSWANA
AUSTRALIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN INDIA
Vaccine name: ZyCoV-D
Efficacy: 66.6%
Dose: 2 or 3 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Skin injection
Storage: Stable at room temperature for three months
In July 2020, the Indian vaccine-maker Zydus Lifesciences (then known as Zydus Cadila) began testing a DNA-based vaccine delivered by a skin patch. After getting promising results in their Phase 1 trial, they launched a Phase 2 trial on ZyCoV-D on Aug. 6. On Jan. 3, 2021 the Indian government gave Zydus Lifesciences permission to advance to a Phase 3 trial with 30,000 volunteers.
The company announced on July 1 that the vaccine had an efficacy of 66.6% and that none of the vaccinated volunteers in the trial developed severe disease or died, making ZyCoV-D the first DNA-based vaccine shown to work against Covid-19. The results were published in April 2022.
Zydus Lifesciences received emergency authorization from the Indian government on Aug. 20, 2021. The authorization was later expanded to include adolescents 12 and older. On Feb. 3, 2022, Zydus Lifesciences announced it had delivered its first shipment of vaccines to the Indian government. Zydus Lifesciences received authorization from Indian health officials to administer ZyCoV-D in a two-dose regimen on April 27.
But in May 2022 the Hindu Business Line reported that there had been negligible demand for ZyCoV-D, with no commercial opportunity for the rest of the year.
Emergency use in: India.
Updated June 13, 2022
Zydus Cadila
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Zydus Cadila
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Zydus Cadila
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Zydus Cadila
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN INDIA
On June 28, 2022, India authorized GEMCOVAC-19, a Covid-19 vaccine that contains self-amplifying RNA. It became the third RNA-based vaccine to get the green light. And unlike RNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, which have to be frozen, GEMCOVAC-19 only needs to be refrigerated.
Seattle-based HDT Bio developed the original technology behind GEMCOVAC-19. Their prototype vaccine, known as HGC019, safely provoked animals to make antibodies to the coronavirus. In July 2020, HDT Bio teamed up with Gennova Biopharmaceuticals to launch clinical trials in India. Phase 1/2 trials started in December 2020.
In March 2022, HDT Bio sued Gennova’s parent company, Emcore. In its court filing, HDT Bio accused the Indian company of stealing trade secrets for the vaccine and claiming it as their own. In May, Emcore sought to have the lawsuit dismissed. A decision was still pending as of June.
Gennova has yet to publish the results of its Phase 3 study. The company told the Indian Express that it had submitted data to the Indian government showing that GEMCOVAC’s immune response was as good or better than Covishield, the Indian version of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
Meanwhile, HDT Bio has partnered with Quratis to launch a trial in South Korea, with SENAI CIMATEC in Brazil and with another company in China. HDT Bio is also reportedly creating a version of the RNA vaccine tailored for the Omicron variant.
Emergency use in: India.
Updated June 29, 2022
Gennova
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gennova
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gennova
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gennova
vaccine
INDIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
In the spring of 2022, the Omicron variant created a crippling surge of Covid cases in China. Calls came for China to switch from inactivated-virus vaccines to more effective ones made from mRNA. Rather than import these vaccines from Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech, the government reportedly chose to wait for the development of a Chinese mRNA vaccine, called AWcorna. But even though research on AWcorna began early in the pandemic, Phase 3 clinical trial results had yet to emerge as of June 2022.
In July 2020, Chinese researchers at the Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Suzhou Abogen Biosciences and Walvax Biotechnology published a paper describing how they created AWcorna (originally known as ARCoV). While authorized mRNA vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna encode the entire spike protein, AWcorna only encodes the tip of the protein, called the receptor binding domain.
A Phase 1 trial carried out in the summer of 2020 demonstrated that the vaccine was safe and produced modest amounts of antibodies, as the researchers described in a paper they published in January 2022.
The Phase 2 trial of AWcorna commenced in January 2021, followed by a Phase 3 trial in July. In January 2022, Reuters reported that the trial had progressed in China, Indonesia, and Mexico. Reuters reported in February 2022 that Walvax had a capacity to make 400 million doses and planned to increase their production. But in April Bloomberg reported that disappointing preliminary results might delay the introduction of the vaccine in China till the end of 2022.
On Nov. 24, 2021, researchers also registered a separate Phase 3 trial to assess the vaccine as a booster. In a paper published in February 2022, researchers reported that a third dose of AWcorna was potent against Omicron in vaccinated mice. That study was followed by a clinical trial in which researchers compared AWcorna as a booster against the inactivated virus vaccines Sinopharm and Sinovac. Researchers found that AWcorna produced higher levels of antibodies that neutralize the coronavirus. But it is still not clear how AWcorna compares against other mRNA vaccines, either as a primary vaccination or a booster.
In December 2021, the U.S. government put the military academy on an export blacklist over concerns their research on biometrics and other technologists might become a threat to national security. It’s not clear how that move will affect the development of AWcorna.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 3
Vaccine name: INO-4800
Efficacy: Unknown
Dose: To be determined
Type: Skin injection
Storage: Over a year at room temperature
The Pennsylvania-based company Inovio gained attention early in the pandemic. At a March 2020 White House meeting, Inovio’s chief executive, J. Joseph Kim, described the company as a leader in the race to make a Covid vaccine. But two years later, Inovio had yet to demonstrate that their vaccine is effective
Before the pandemic, the company developed DNA-based vaccines that are delivered into the skin with electric pulses from a hand-held device. At the start of the pandemic, Inovio created a DNA vaccine against the spike protein on the coronavirus. A Phase 1 trial, published in December 2020, did not uncover any serious adverse effects, and measured an immune response in all 38 volunteers.
But Inovio soon experienced a number of setbacks. The company became embroiled in several lawsuits with stockholders and a company partner. On Sept. 28, 2020, the F.D.A. put the vaccine on a partial hold due to questions about the delivery device. The pause was lifted in November.
In November 2020, Inovio started Phase 2 trials in the United States as well as in China and South Korea. But by the time Inovio began preparing for a Phase 3 trial of their vaccine, other vaccines had already been authorized and being deployed on a wide scale. As a result, the U.S. government decided in April 2021 to stop supporting Inovio’s trial.
On Aug. 26, 2021, Inovio announced that Brazilian regulators authorized their Phase 3 trial, and in September they announced that they had received approval for another Phase 3 trial in the Philippines and in Mexico. The F.D.A. authorized a Phase 3 trial in the U.S. on Nov. 9, 2021. However, these trials have yet to move forward.
More disappointment came in February 2022, when the company reported that the vaccine was proving less potent against the Omicron variant. As a result, Inovio paused the trial to change its design. They will be measuring the vaccine’s efficacy only against severe disease, rather than against any symptomatic cases of Covid.
On May 10, 2022, Inovio said that it would discontinue its Phase 3 trial and focus attention on testing the vaccine as a booster. Their booster trial is currently in Phase 2.
The World Health Organization selected Inovio’s vaccine as one its first candidates in the Solidarity Trial Vaccine study. In an August 2022 corporate presentation, Inovio said that this Phase 3 trial had begun.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Vaccine name: ARCT-154
Efficacy: 55% against infection, 95.3% against severe disease. (Trial conducted when Delta and Omicron were dominant.)
The California-based company Arcturus Therapeutics and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore have developed a vaccine called ARCT-154 that delivers mRNA that can self-replicate inside cells. As a result, the vaccine requires a lower dose to produce the viral proteins required for an immune response. Tests on animals showed that it protected them against infection.
Starting in August 2020, Arcturus launched a series of clinical trials on two different versions of the vaccine. Results from the trials suggest that both candidates stimulate the production of antibodies against several variants, including Omicron.
On April 20, 2022, Arcturus announced that ARCT-154 had an efficacy of 55 percent against infection, and 95.3 percent against severe disease, including death. While the efficacy of the vaccine was lower than mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, the company noted that its volunteers were exposed to the Delta and Omicron variants, instead of the original strain of the coronavirus. In May 2022, Arcturus reported that ARCT-154 performed well as a booster for people vaccinated with Comirnaty and later reported that it raised antibodies against the Omicron variant and its subvariants.
On February 28, 2022, Arcturus announced it had applied for emergency use authorization in Vietnam for ARCT-154. In an August 2022 company report, it said that a government reorganization delayed the vaccine’s review. Arcturus said it expected authorization in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Japan-based researchers at Daiichi Sankyo have developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus in collaboration with the University of Tokyo. They launched a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine, named DS-5670, on March 22, 2021. In an Oct. 21 press release, Daiichi Sankyo said that the vaccine produced no relevant safety concerns in the trial. The company began Phase 2 trials on Nov. 17, and reported positive results in a May 26, 2022 press release.
In January 2022, the company started a Phase 2/3 trial of the vaccine as a booster. On May 26, 2022, Daiichi Sankyo announced that the level of antibodies produced by a DS-5670 booster were comparable or higher than authorized mRNA vaccines. The company said it was going to launch a trial on 4,500 volunteers to compare the performance of their booster to one that has already been approved. In June, Biospectrum reported that Daiichi Sankyo planned to commercialize the vaccine by the end of 2022.
Updated July 18, 2022
PHASE 2
Canada’s Providence Therapeutics specializes in messenger RNA vaccines to treat cancer. In response to the pandemic, they developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus. They launched a Phase 1 study of an RNA vaccine in late January 2021, and in May 2022 they published results of the trial, showing that the vaccine appeared safe and produced promising levels of antibodies. In August 2021, Providence Therapeutics launched a Phase 2 trial comparing the vaccine to Comirnaty.
In June 2021, the company reached an agreement with the Indian vaccine maker Biological E to carry out further trials in India. Biological E agreed to purchase up to 30 million doses and planned to scale their production of the vaccine to as many as a billion doses in 2022. In September, Providence also reached an agreement with Everest Medicines to produce and market the vaccine in China.
In December 2021, Providence Therapeutics announced that the World Health Organization had chosen its vaccine as one of the candidates it will test in its Solidarity Trial Vaccine study.
In an Aug. 24, 2022, update, Everest said that it and Providence expect to launch a Phase 3 trial for the booster vaccine this year. The two companies predict that its vaccine will be approved and marketed globally in 2023.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 2
Researchers at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University developed several potential vaccines for the coronavirus. The furthest along is an mRNA-based vaccine known as ChulaCov19. In September 2020, the Chula Vaccine Research Center registered a Phase 1 trial to test it in humans. Delays in funding and manufacturing slowed the study’s launch until June 2021. In May 2022, Chula researchers issued a report showing that the Phase 1 volunteers produced higher antibodies than people who received Comirnaty.
In an interview with the Bangkok Post, the leader of the project said that up to 30 million doses might be produced for Thailand and six other Asian countries if the vaccine proved to be safe and effective. Citing positive preliminary results, the researchers said in August that the vaccine would soon advance to the next phase of clinical trials.
At a November 2021 conference at Chulalongkorn University, the scientists behind the vaccine said that Phase 2 trials were completed with satisfactory results, and that the Thai government had approved Phase 3 trials. But a Phase 3 trial is not yet registered.
In May 2022, the Bangkok Post reported that a factory in Thailand was beginning to produce the vaccine, and it could be authorized by the end of 2022.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 2
Chinese researchers from AIM Vaccine and Liverna Therapeutics have developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus. They registered a Phase 1 trial in China on July 31, 2021, and reported positive results in January 2022. On April 29, 2022, they registered a Phase 2 trial.
Updated April 29, 2022
PHASE 2
CSPC Pharmaceutical Group is working on an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus, called SYS6006. After promising results from preclinical studies, CSPC said on April 3, 2022, that it had received approval to begin clinical trials in China. The researchers moved to Phase 2 trials on June 30.
Updated July 1, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Vaccine name: AG0302-COVID19
Efficacy: Unknown
Dose: 2 doses, 2 weeks apart
Type: Skin injection
Storage: Over a year at room temperature
On June 30, 2020, the Japanese biotechnology company AnGes launched a Phase 1 trial to test a DNA-based vaccine, developed in partnership with Osaka University and Takara Bio. The company moved on to a Phase 2/3 trial in December. Preliminary results suggested the dose was too low to produce a strong immune response, and so the researchers registered a new Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine at a higher dose on Augs. 6, 2021. On Nov. 25, AnGes released a statement rebutting reports that it had abandoned progress on the vaccine. Even though the candidate’s ability to generate antibodies has been disappointing, it said, the trials would continue. AnGes said on Feb. 15, 2022, that the trial was experiencing delays and that the final results still need to be analyzed before moving to Phase 3 trials.
Updated April 3, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
GeneOne Life Science, a South Korean biotech company, developed a DNA-based vaccine that encodes two proteins from the coronavirus. In December 2020, they launched a Phase 1/2 trial with 345 participants. After receiving positive interim results from the trial, GeneOne announced on July 8, 2021 that it would begin Phase 2.
GeneOne is also experimenting with different vaccine delivery techniques. On Oct. 20, the company registered a Phase 1 trial to gauge how well their candidate works when injected into a patient’s arm and delivered as a nasal spray. In the study, the researchers will also see if a skin suction device will improve outcomes. In January 2022, GeneOne registered a new trial to test their vaccine as a booster. The trial began on May 23, 2022.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Takis Biotech and Rottapharm Biotech, two vaccine companies in Italy, developed a vaccine called COVID-eVax. A special device uses a tiny electric pulse to deliver DNA through the skin. The DNA enters cells, which use the genetic instructions to make spike protein fragments. In February 2021, Takis and Rottapharm launched a Phase 1/2 trial in Italy. COVID-eVax can remain stable at room temperature. In September, the companies issued a press release stating that the Phase 1 trial delivered promising results. But they were not yet able to proceed to a Phase 2 trial because the vaccination rate in Italy had climbed so high that recruiting volunteers would be difficult.
In November 2021, Takis and Rottapharm announced they had created an Omicron-specific version of COVID-eVax. But they acknowledged that they still lacked funding for additional clinical studies. By then, Italy’s vaccination rate had climbed so far that the companies said it would be difficult to recruit enough volunteers to move to the Phase 2 trial. They have not issued any further statements about the status of the vaccine.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Researchers at Baltimore-based Elixirgen Therapeutics have created an RNA vaccine, named EXG-5003, that targets a small part of the coronavirus spike protein. In May 2021 they launched a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine in Japan. On Oct. 8, Elixirgen announced that it has licensed its vaccine to an undisclosed company for worldwide marketing, excluding Japan.
Updated Oct. 8, 2021
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Researchers at Korean biotechnology company Eyegene have developed an mRNA vaccine that uses a delivery system slightly different from other genetic vaccines. Instead of using a lipid nanoparticle, their vaccine uses liposomes — tiny fat bubbles — to bring the genetic material to the cell. Korean regulators approved a Phase 1/2 trial in August 2021 for the vaccine, called EG-COVID. Eyegene’s C.E.O., Wonil Yoo, told a Korean television station that the trial began in September. But in December, Eyegene said that it will receive help from the Korean government in recruiting patients for the trial, after experiencing difficulties finding enough eligible participants. In January 2022, Eyegene registered the trial in Australia. Eyegene received approval to conduct a Phase 1/2 booster trial of EG-COVID in Australia on Feb. 21, 2022.
Updated Feb. 21, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Chinese researchers at Stemirna Therapeutics have developed an mRNA vaccine in collaboration with Shanghai East Hospital. They registered a Phase 1 trial on May 1, 2021. The scientists registered another Phase 1/2 trial on Dec. 3 and an additional Phase 1 trial on May 12, 2022.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Norwegian biopharmaceutical company Nykode Therapeutics have developed two DNA vaccine candidates to protect against coronavirus variants. On Oct. 6, 2021, the researchers registered a Phase 1/2 trial. They will test the two vaccines head-to-head in the first part of the study and then select one for further trials. Formerly called Vaccibody, the company changed its name on Nov. 23. Nykode and needle-free injection technology company PharmaJet announced a new Phase 1/2 trial to address variants on Dec. 14.
Updated Dec. 16, 2021
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
In addition to its adenovirus-based vaccine, ImmunityBio has developed two additional vaccines that use self-amplifying RNA to stimulate the body’s T cells. Researchers registered a Phase 1/2 trial to compare the two as boosters in May 2022.
Updated May 23, 2022
PHASE 1
The Canadian company Entos Pharmaceuticals has created a DNA vaccine for the coronavirus. Most other genetic vaccines carry the gene for the spike protein on the surface of the virus. Entos instead chose the gene for a protein called nucleocapsid that sits inside the virus’s membrane. The company is betting it can offer long-lasting immunity.
In October 2020, Entos launched a Phase 1 trial in Canada for their vaccine, called Covigenix VAX-001. They began dosing participants on April 15. Entos C.E.O. John Lewis told Canadian media on Aug. 4 that the vaccine produced a sufficient immune response without adverse reactions. Lewis later told the Owen Sound Sun Times in December 2021 that a Phase 2 trial would begin in South Africa in early 2022, but the company had not yet announced the trial as of August 2022. Entos is also one of four vaccine makers that received a portion of an $81.2 million commitment from the Alberta government to develop their candidates.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 1
On Nov. 2, 2020, the Canadian company Symvivo announced they had administered a DNA vaccine to their first volunteer in a Phase 1 trial. The DNA is inserted into harmless bacteria, which volunteers swallow in a frozen liquid (the company is working on putting the bacteria into a pill). When the bacteria reach the intestines, the DNA slips into cells in the gut lining, which then make viral proteins. Symvivo announced on July 19, 2021 that it received nearly $5 million in funding from the National Research Council of Canada’s Industrial Research Assistance Program to continue developing its vaccine.
In its trial registry, Symvivo said that it expected results from the Phase 1 study in February 2022. The company has yet to release any data from the trial. And on May 3, Symvivo pushed the study completion date to September 2022 in the trial registry.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 1
Using a delivery system from PharmaJet, researchers at BioNet-Asia and Australia-based Technovalia have developed a DNA vaccine called COVIGEN that can be pushed through the skin without a needle. Instead, the dose is loaded into a handheld device and shot directly into cell tissue through a jet spray of fluid. Vaccines for the flu already use the device, which PharmaJet says is a safer alternative to needle injections.
The University of Sydney registered a Phase 1 trial of COVIGEN in Australia on Feb. 8, 2021. In January 2022, Technovalia announced that an interim study found no safety issues with the vaccine. The company said that the trial would shift to testing COVIGEN as a booster on people who are already vaccinated.
Updated April 3, 2022
PHASE 1
Scancell, a British company that develops treatments for cancer, has created two DNA vaccine candidates against the coronavirus. Their first vaccine, called SCOV1, targets the original virus and its early variants. SCOV2 is intended to act as a booster shot. Scancell is using a needle-free injection technology made by Colorado-based PharmaJet to administer the vaccines into the skin through a concentrated jet of fluid. On Jan. 31, 2022, the company announced that it had dosed the first volunteer in its Phase 1 clinical trial in South Africa. Scancell broadened the trial to include individuals with prior infection or other vaccines in March. In May, Scancell pushed the study completion date to December 2022 in their trial registry.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 1
Gritstone bio has developed experimental vaccines in recent years that teach the immune system to attack tumors. The company has created vaccines for Covid-19 based on RNA molecules that can make copies of themselves, increasing the production of viral proteins from each cell. While most RNA-based vaccines produce spike proteins, Gritstone bio includes RNA molecules to produce parts of other viral proteins. T cells can use those additional proteins to recognize infected cells and kill them. Experiments on monkeys, published in June 2022, showed that the vaccine produced high levels of antibodies and protected the animals from disease.
On Sept. 20, 2021, Gritstone dosed the first volunteer in a Phase 1 trial to gauge the effectiveness of the mRNA vaccine as a booster shot in older adults who have already received the Astrazeneca vaccine. In January 2022, the company announced promising initial results from the trial.
In a financial report in August 2022, Gritstone bio announced that three additional Phase 1 trials were underway, including volunteers with immune systems compromised by HIV and B cell deficiencies.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong developed a DNA vaccine against the coronavirus. In a Phase 1 trial, which was registered on Nov. 1, 2021, the researchers injected the vaccine into the muscles of volunteers, followed by electric shocks to induce cells into receiving the vaccine. They wrote in the trial record that this strategy could improve vaccine uptake.
Updated April 3, 2022
PHASE 1
VLP Therapeutics Japan, a subsidiary of Maryland-based company VLP Therapeutics, won funding in August 2020 from the Japanese government to develop a self-amplifying RNA vaccine against the coronavirus. In October 2020, it announced a partnership with FUJIFILM to help manufacture their candidate, called VLPCOV-01. The researchers registered a Phase 1 clinical trial in Japan a year later. On Feb. 1, 2022, they launched a Phase 1 trial for the vaccine as a booster.
Updated Feb. 7, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at DIOSynVax, led by a professor at the University of Cambridge, have developed a genetic vaccine that targets specific parts of the coronavirus that they say are common across all known variants. They have partnered with PharmaJet to administer the vaccine, called DIOS-CoVax, through the skin without using needles. On Dec. 14, the BBC reported that a Phase 1 trial began in the United Kingdom to assess DIOS-CoVax’s effectiveness as a booster in participants who have already received two doses of another vaccine. On March 8, 2022, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations announced that it would give up to $42 million to DIOSynVax to develop a vaccine against a range of coronaviruses.
Updated March 11, 2022
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: CV2nCoV
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable at least 3 months at 36–46°F (2–8°C)
In March 2022, the German company CureVac, in partnership with GSK, launched Phase 1 clinical trial for an mRNA vaccine called CV2nCoV. The vaccine is an improved version of CureVac’s initial Covid vaccine, CVnCoV, which delivered disappointing results in clinical trials in 2021 .
After abandoning the CVnCoV trial, CureVac retooled the vaccine to create CV2nCoV. The new version triggers the production of more spike proteins in cells, leading to a stronger immune response. In November 2021, researchers at Harvard published a study in the journal Nature showing that monkeys given CV2CoV produced antibodies to the coronavirus at a level comparable to the Comirnaty vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech. In the Phase 1 clinical trial, researchers will evaluate CV2CoV as a booster shot. The researchers dosed the first participant on March 30, 2022. Preclinical studies suggest that the vaccine is effective against emerging variants, the companies said in April 2022.
Updated Aug 26, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at the University of Melbourne are testing an mRNA vaccine in a Phase 1 trial. In the trial, which was registered on March 9, 2022, the researchers plan to measure antibody levels produced in volunteers who have already received two doses and a booster shot of widely used vaccines. The university is also testing a protein-based vaccine.
Updated March 11, 2022
PHASE 1
Chinese researchers at CanSino Biologics have also developed an mRNA vaccine against the coronavirus. Preclinical studies have shown that the vaccine stimulates antibody production against emerging variants. On April 4, 2022, CanSino announced that it had received approval from the Chinese government to begin clinical trials.
Updated April 8, 2022
PHASE 1
Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology, a Chinese biotechnology company, registered a Phase 1 trial for an mRNA vaccine called RH109 on April 28, 2022. They will test the vaccine as a booster on 24 participants.
Updated April 29, 2022
PHASE 1
Shanghai RNACure Biopharma, a Chinese biotechnology company, registered a two-part Phase 1 clinical trial on May 31, 2022. The company has developed a number of mRNA molecules as potential vaccines for Covid. Some coax cells to make virus-like particles. Others only encode the spike protein on the surface of the coronavirus. For their clinical trials, RNACure is collaborating with Walvax to test a spike-producing vaccine called RQ3013. The spike protein produced by RQ3013 gives animals immunity to a range of variants. In the clinical trial, RNACure will test two doses of the vaccine on volunteers who have not been vaccinated before and will also give it to vaccinated volunteers as a booster. They will compare RQ3013 to the Comirnaty vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at the University of Adelaide are developing a DNA-based booster vaccine to fight against the Omicron variant. The creators say that using DNA allows them to quickly configure the vaccine for future variants. On Aug. 16, 2022, PharmaJet said that its needle-free delivery technology is being used in ongoing human trials for the Adelaide vaccine.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: CV0501
After its initial vaccine failed in trials, CureVac and GSK started a new trial of a version they called CV2nCoV in early 2022. But the companies went on to make a second round of updates, producing a new vaccine called CV0501. On Aug. 18, 2022, they announced that they were launching a Phase 1 trial of CV0501 as a booster.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
ABANDONED
The South Korean company Genexine started testing the safety of a DNA-based vaccine early in the pandemic, but a series of disappointments soon put them behind other developers. In December 2020, the Korea Biomedical Review reported that Genexine got disappointing results from their initial formulation and decided to restart their trials with a modified vaccine.
On Jan. 20, 2021, the company registered a Phase 1/2 trial, and in June they registered a Phase 1 trial specifically for elderly volunteers. The Indonesian pharmaceutical company Kalbe Farma pledged in April to buy 10 million doses of Genexine’s vaccine if it was proven to be safe and effective. In July, Indonesian regulators gave the green light for a late-stage clinical trial. Genexine registered a Phase 2/3 clinical trial in October to test their vaccine as a booster for other vaccines.
But their clinical trials proved disappointing once more. Results from the Phase 1/2 trial suggested that the vaccine, called GX-19N, would need improvement to be competitive with other vaccines. By March 2022, the company decided that it could not justify continuing its trials when authorized Covid vaccines were already so accessible in many countries. Genexine announced on March 11 that it was abandoning further development of GX-19N.
Updated April 3, 2022
ABANDONED
In early 2020, Imperial College London researchers developed a “self-amplifying” RNA vaccine for Covid-19, which boosted production of a viral protein to stimulate the immune system. They began Phase 1/2 trials on June 15, partnering with Morningside Ventures to manufacture and distribute the vaccine through a new company called VacEquity Global Health. On Dec. 18, the researchers announced a collaboration with Enesi Pharma to formulate a solid version of the vaccine that can be implanted in the skin without a needle.
On Jan. 27, 2021, Robin Shattuck, the leader of the project, announced that “it is not the right time to start a new efficacy trial for a further vaccine in the U.K.” Instead of competing with authorized vaccines, they turned their efforts to making candidates that will work well against emerging variants of the coronavirus.
A year later, the researchers published the final results from the trial. They found that the self-amplifying RNA platform was safe and promising, but the vaccine couldn’t generate a promising immune response.
Updated April 3, 2022
ABANDONED
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi collaborated with Massachusetts-based Translate Bio to develop an mRNA vaccine for Covid-19. In 2020, they reported that the vaccine, MRT5500, produced a strong antibody response in mice and monkeys, and protected hamsters against coronavirus infections. They followed up on that research with a Phase 1/2 trial in March 2021. Over the summer, Sanofi acquired Translate Bio for $3 billion. On Sept. 28, the company announced that the clinical trial had yielded encouraging early results. By then, however, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines were widely available, and so Sanofi decided to pull the plug on its own mRNA Covid-19 vaccine program. Meanwhile, it continued a Phase 3 trial on a protein-based vaccine that may serve as a booster against Covid-19.
Updated April 3, 2022
ABANDONED
Vaccine name: CVnCoV
Efficacy: 48%
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable at least 3 months at 36–46°F (2–8°C)
The German company CureVac generated a lot of hope for its mRNA vaccine for Covid-19 in 2020, only to see it deliver disappointing results in clinical trials the following year.
The company, founded in 2001, had years of experience developing experimental mRNA vaccines for a host of diseases. In early 2020, they began work on a Covid-19 vaccine, called CVnCoV. In March, the Trump administration unsuccessfully tried to entice CureVac to move its research on their mRNA vaccine from Germany to the United States.
The company plowed ahead with its work in Germany, seeing responses to the vaccine in mice and monkeys before launching clinical trials in July. CVnCoV showed promise in several respects: it could remain stable in a refrigerator rather than a freezer, and preliminary studies suggested it would work well at a low dose, reducing its cost.
In December, CureVac launched a Phase 3 trial, recruiting up to 36,500 volunteers in Germany. The European Union began a rolling review in February, intended to speed up approval if the Phase 3 trial delivers positive results.
Meanwhile, CureVac prepared for mass production of the vaccine. The company negotiated a deal to provide the European Union with up to 400 million doses of their vaccine. They projected manufacturing up to 300 million doses in 2021 and up to a billion doses the following year. Starting in January 2021, CureVac forged a series of partnerships with pharmaceutical giants Bayer, Celonic, GSK, and Novartis, to support the production of their vaccine and develop new ones against coronavirus variants.
In June 2021, CureVac reported disappointing results from their Phase 3 trial. Overall, CVnCoV had an efficacy of just 48 percent against Covid-19. It proved somewhat better for younger volunteers: For those between the ages of 18 and 60, the efficacy rose to 53 percent. In that group, the researchers also found the vaccine provided 100 percent protection against hospitalization and death. Researchers later pointed to the vaccine dosage along with the rise of new variants as potential reasons for the low efficacy. On Sept. 14, CureVac announced that it had canceled its manufacturing deals with Celonic and German company Wacker, citing a decline in demand for CVnCoV.
Despite the disappointing results, the company moved ahead with preparing an application to the European Union for emergency authorization for the use of the vaccine in people 60 and under. But European regulators gave no indication they would continue speeding along their review. As a result, on Oct. 12, CureVac announced that it would withdraw CVnCoV from the regulatory approval process. The company is now testing a new version of their vaccine, called CV2CoV.
Updated March 4, 2022
ABANDONED
New Jersey-based OncoSec Immunotherapies has developed experimental cancer treatments that deliver genes into tumors. There, the injected genes produce a natural signaling molecule called IL-12, which attracts the attention of immune cells that attack the cancer. In the spring of 2020, OncoSec began adapting their technology to make a vaccine for the coronavirus. The vaccine, called CORVax12, consisted of a loop of DNA that encodes both the spike protein and IL-12. OncoSec researchers hoped that by causing the body to make extra IL-12, the vaccine would enhance the immune system’s ability to make antibodies to the spike protein. On Jan. 27, 2021, the company began dosing participants in its Phase 1 trial to test the safety of CORVax12. In November, a spokeswoman said that OncoSec was no longer investigating the vaccine.
Updated April 3, 2022
Viral Vector Vaccines
Vaccines that contain viruses engineered to carry coronavirus genes. Some viral vector vaccines enter cells and cause them to make viral proteins. Other viral vectors slowly replicate, carrying coronavirus proteins on their surface.
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN RUSSIA
EMERGENCY USE IN MANY COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Sputnik V (also known as Gam-Covid-Vac)
Efficacy: 91.6% against Alpha Variant, 75% against Omicron.
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Freezer storage. Developing an alternative formulation that can be refrigerated.
The Gamaleya Research Institute, part of Russia’s Ministry of Health, has created a vaccine with an efficacy rate of 91.6 percent. Russia began distributing the vaccine, known as Sputnik V, in fall 2020, and it is now widely used around the world. On Feb. 4, 2022, Sputnik V received full approval from the Russian government. Tass reported in August 2022 that 400 million doses had been distributed to 71 countries.
On Nov. 11, 2020, the Russian Direct Investment Fund announced the first preliminary evidence from their Phase 3 trial indicating that the vaccine was effective. Based on 20 cases of Covid-19 among the trial participants, Russian scientists estimated that the vaccine demonstrated 92 percent efficacy.
By December, the trial had reached its final total of 78 cases. The creators of the vaccine published the results of their Phase 3 trial on Feb. 2, 2021 in the Lancet.
When other countries began using Sputnik V, they ran studies of their own to measure the effectiveness of the vaccine. On Nov. 1, 2021, a team of researchers in Argentina published a paper showing that the vaccine reduces infection by 88.1 percent and Covid-19-related deaths by 98.3 percent in people over 60.
In January 2021, Gamaleya researchers started a trial in which they gave people only the first dose of Ad26 adenoviruses, the same adenovirus in Johnson & Johnson’s single-dose vaccine. They dubbed this one-dose version “Sputnik Light.” A Phase 1/2 trial showed that a single dose produced antibodies and was safe; the details were eventually published in the Lancet in Nov. 2021.
Russia announced on May 6 that Sputnik Light provided an efficacy of 79.4 percent but did not publish the details of the study or say how long the efficacy would last. After the single-dose version of the vaccine was rolled out in Argentina, a study found that its effectiveness there was between 78.6 and 83.7 percent.
Phase 2 human trials for an intranasal version of Sputnik V have begun, Tass reported on Feb. 15, 2022.
Russian researchers are also working on modifying the vaccine for use in teenagers. Called “Sputnik M,” the candidate is a fractional dose of Sputnik V. They have recruited 3,000 adolescents for the ongoing clinical trials. On June 14, 2022, 14 children between 9 and 11 received one-tenth of an adult dose as part of a clinical trial.
On Dec. 22, 2020, Belarus became the first country outside of Russia to register Sputnik V, and since then a number of other countries have followed suit. But as of August 2022, neither the European Medicines Agency and the World Health Organization had yet to accept Russia’s application for an emergency authorization. In June 2022, Tass reported that Sputnik had not been produced for months.
For more details, see How Gamaleya’s Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: Russia.
Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina (including Sputnik Light), Armenia (including Sputnik Light), Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus (including Sputnik Light), Benin (Sputnik Light), Bolivia, Bosnian Serb Republic, Brazil, Cambodia (including Sputnik Light), Cameroon, Chile, Congo Republic (including Sputnik Light), Djibouti, Ecuador, Egypt (including Sputnik Light), Honduras, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran (including Sputnik Light), Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan (including Sputnik Light), Kenya, Kyrgyzstan (including Sputnik Light), Laos (including Sputnik Light), Lebanon, Libya, Maldives, Mali, Mauritius (including Sputnik Light), Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia (including Sputnik Light), Montenegro, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Nicaragua (including Sputnik Light), Nigeria, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority (including Sputnik Light), Panama, Paraguay, Philippines (including Sputnik Light), Russia (including Sputnik Light and Sputnik M), Rwanda, San Marino (including Sputnik Light), Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Tunisia (including Sputnik Light), Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates (including Sputnik Light), Uzbekistan, Venezuela (including Sputnik Light), Vietnam, West Bank, Zimbabwe.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
Gamaleya’s
Sputnik V
vaccine
RUSSIA
HUNGARY
ALGERIA
MONGOLIA
GUINEA
MALI
IRAN
PAKISTAN
BAHRAIN
GABON
U.A.E.
MEXICO
INDIA
ANGOLA
BRAZIL
INDONESIA
KENYA
PARAGUAY
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gamaleya’s
Sputnik V
vaccine
HUNGARY
RUSSIA
ALGERIA
MONGOLIA
GUINEA
PAKISTAN
IRAN
BAHRAIN
GABON
MEXICO
INDIA
U.A.E.
BRAZIL
ANGOLA
KENYA
PARAGUAY
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gamaleya’s
Sputnik V
vaccine
RUSSIA
HUNGARY
MONGOLIA
ALGERIA
IRAN
PAKISTAN
GABON
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
KENYA
PARAGUAY
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Gamaleya’s
Sputnik V
vaccine
MEXICO
BRAZIL
PARAGUAY
ARGENTINA
RUSSIA
HUNGARY
ALGERIA
MONGOLIA
PAKISTAN
IRAN
BAHRAIN
GABON
INDIA
ANGOLA
KENYA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
APPROVED IN BRAZIL, INDIA
EMERGENCY USE IN E.U., ELSEWHERE
Vaccine name: Vaxzevria (also known as AZD1222, or Covishield in India)
Efficacy: 74% against symptomatic Covid19; 100% against severe or critical Covid-19.
Dose: 2 doses
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable in refrigerator for at least 6 months
A vaccine designed by the University of Oxford and produced by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca emerged as a key element in the effort to meet the global demand for Covid-19 vaccines. With an efficacy of 76 percent, the vaccine — now known as Vaxzevria —was produced in vast quantities at a low price. Because it only needs to be refrigerated rather than frozen, it can be used far more widely than mRNA vaccines. But Vaxzevria’s journey has been turbulent, jolted by confusing messages from AstraZeneca, high-profile worries about safety, and difficulties with manufacturing.
Over the course of 2021, 2.5 billion doses of Vaxzevria were distributed worldwide. An independent study estimated that the vaccine saved six million lives through December 2021. But in 2022, as supplies of other vaccines grew, the demand for Vaxzevria fell, leading some manufacturers to halt production.
On Dec. 8, 2020, AstraZeneca and Oxford published the first scientific paper on a Phase 3 clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The trial demonstrated that the vaccine can protect people from Covid-19, but it left many questions unresolved about the results. Nevertheless, the vaccine’s low cost and ease of storage made it attractive to countries looking for a way out of the pandemic.
On Feb. 14, 2021, AstraZeneca announced they would start trials on children as young as six. Researchers at Oxford reported preliminary results suggesting that a combination of AstraZeneca’s vaccine followed by Comirnaty produces strong levels of antibodies. AstraZeneca also launched a similar trial with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine. Results from that study suggest that the combination yielded at least a four-fold increase in antibodies in 85 percent of participants. In September 2021, Imperial College London launched a trial of an inhaled form of the vaccine. Brazilian researchers registered a Phase 2/3 trial on Sept. 28 to evaluate the effectiveness of a half dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine compared to the normal dosing scheme. A fourth dose of AstraZeneca is being tested in Israel to gauge its effectiveness against the Omicron variant.
In the summer of 2020, Astrazeneca promised it would distribute Vaxzevria in the United States as soon as that October. But a concern about the health of a volunteer in the U.S. clinical trial stalled the study for seven weeks. AstraZeneca did not deliver the results of the trial until March 2021 — only to be rebuked by its expert advisors for cherry-picking data. These speed bumps slowed the company down, while other vaccines were getting authorized and meeting the demand in the United States. By spring 2022, AstraZeneca had abandoned its plan to apply to the F.D.A.
Even while it was running clinical trials in 2020, AstraZeneca reached agreements with a number of manufacturers in order to produce billions of doses of Vaxzevria. But in January 2021, it admitted that it would fall short of its promised delivery of vaccines to the European Union. Its shortfall grew only worse in March when India, facing an explosion of new cases, blocked export of the vaccine from its factories. On April 26, the European Commission filed a lawsuit against the company for breach of contract. The court ordered AstraZeneca on June 18 to deliver 50 million additional doses of Vaxzevria, substantially less than the 90 million the European Commission had demanded. AstraZeneca met the revised deadline on July 26. In September, AstraZeneca and the European Commission settled their dispute, with an agreement for the company to supply 200 million doses by March 2022.
In the spring of 2021, as other countries struggled with devastating new waves of Covid-19, the United States came under intense criticism for holding back raw materials India needed to make its own supply of Covishield. On April 25, the Biden administration announced it would partially lift its ban. Later, it promised to distribute AstraZeneca vaccines to other countries. But due to concerns about the facility where the vaccines were made in Baltimore, the vaccines were held back for nearly one year, until the F.D.A. said in February 2022 that it had cleared them for shipment.
In South Africa, a small trial failed to demonstrate that it protected people against the Beta variant, which had become predominant in the country. On Feb. 7, 2021, South Africa halted plans for a rollout of 1 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and switched to Johnson & Johnson.
In March 2021, Covax began delivering doses of the vaccine to low- and middle-income countries. But manufacturing bottlenecks have slowed the pipeline. Declining demand for the vaccine pushed the Serum Institute of India to halve its production of new Vaxzevria shots, Reuters reported on Dec. 8. The Serum Institute announced that it would halt production on April 22, 2022.
On April 11, 2022, Japan announced that it would not purchase 40 million of the 120 million doses it agreed to buy last year, citing lower demand.
Concerns over Vaxzevria’s short shelf life have also pushed some countries to decline millions of doses of the vaccine.
AstraZeneca and Oxford created a version of the vaccine tailored to the Beta variant and launched a Phase 2/3 trial to test it. But on Feb. 10, 2022, AstraZeneca announced that the Beta vaccine provided no greater efficacy against the Omicron variant, leading them to abandon it.
For more details, see How the Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: Brazil, India.
Stopped use in: Denmark, Norway.
Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Barbuda, Belize, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Comoros, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Eswatini, Ethiopia, European Union, Fiji, Gambia, Georgia, Ghana, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Kiribati, Kosovo, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palestinian Authority, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, San Martin, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, South Sudan, Sudan, Suriname, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, Yemen, Zambia. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Endorsed by the Africa Regulatory Taskforce. Recommended for emergency use by the Caribbean Regulatory System.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
Oxford-AstraZeneca
vaccine
NORWAY
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
MOROCCO
CANADA
MONGOLIA
SOUTH KOREA
ALGERIA
BAHAMAS
PHILIPPINES
EGYPT
IRAN
PAKISTAN
NIGERIA
INDIA
MEXICO
BRAZIL
INDONESIA
COSTA RICA
KENYA
AUSTRALIA
NAMIBIA
MALDIVES
SEYCHELLES
CHILE
SOUTH
AFRICA
ARGENTINA
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Oxford-
AstraZeneca
vaccine
NORWAY
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
CANADA
MOROCCO
MONGOLIA
SOUTH KOREA
ALGERIA
IRAN
BAHAMAS
PHILIPPINES
EGYPT
PAKISTAN
NIGERIA
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
KENYA
COSTA RICA
AUSTRALIA
NAMIBIA
MALDIVES
SEYCHELLES
CHILE
ARGENTINA
SOUTH
AFRICA
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Oxford-
AstraZeneca
vaccine
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
NORWAY
MONGOLIA
CANADA
MOROCCO
ALGERIA
SOUTH KOREA
BAHAMAS
EGYPT
PHILIPPINES
IRAN
NIGERIA
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
KENYA
COSTA RICA
NAMIBIA
MALDIVES
SEYCHELLES
ARGENTINA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Oxford-
AstraZeneca
vaccine
CANADA
BAHAMAS
MEXICO
BRAZIL
COSTA RICA
CHILE
ARGENTINA
BRITAIN AND
THE E.U.
NORWAY
MONGOLIA
ALGERIA
SOUTH KOREA
EGYPT
PHILIPPINES
IRAN
INDIA
NAMIBIA
KENYA
MALDIVES
SEYCHELLES
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Stopped use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CHINA
EMERGENCY USE IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Convidecia (also known as Ad5-nCoV)
Efficacy: 57.5% against symptomatic Covid, 91.7% against severe disease.
Dose: Single dose
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Refrigerated
Convidecia is a vaccine developed by the Chinese company CanSino Biologics in partnership with the Institute of Biology at the country’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences. The one-shot vaccine, based on an adenovirus called Ad5, was approved in China in February 2021. The World Health Organization granted Convidecia emergency use listing in May 2022.
CanSino researchers published promising results from a Phase 1 safety trial on Convidecia in May 2020, and in July they reported that their Phase 2 trials demonstrated the vaccine produced a strong immune response. In an unprecedented move, the Chinese military approved the vaccine on June 25 for a year as a “specially needed drug.” On Nov. 28, the Chief Executive of CanSino Biologics said in an interview that about 40,000 to 50,000 people had received Convidecia.
Starting in August 2020, CanSino began running Phase 3 trials in a number of countries, including Pakistan, Russia, Mexico and Chile. On Feb. 25, 2021, China announced the approval of the CanSino vaccine for general use.
Results from the Phase 3 trial, published in The Lancet in December 2021, showed that Convidecia had an efficacy against Covid-19 of 57.5 percent. Against severe disease, its efficacy was 91.7 percent.
As time passed, it became clear that Convidecia’s effectiveness was waning, and researchers began testing boosters. In January 2022, Chinese researchers reported that an inhaled booster of Convidecia was safe and produced very high levels of antibodies against the coronavirus when administered in individuals who originally received a different vaccine. In Argentina, researchers are evaluating how well Convidecia works as a booster in individuals who have received Sputnik V.
Approved for use in: China.
Emergency use in: Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Hungary, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Pakistan, Paraguay. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Updated May 23, 2022
CanSino vaccine
HUNGARY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
ECUADOR
INDONESIA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
CanSino vaccine
HUNGARY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
ECUADOR
INDONESIA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
CanSino vaccine
HUNGARY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
ECUADOR
INDONESIA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
CanSino vaccine
MEXICO
ARGENTINA
ECUADOR
CHILE
HUNGARY
CHINA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CANADA
EMERGENCY USE IN U.S., OTHER COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Ad26.COV2.S
Efficacy: 72% in United States, 68% in Brazil and 64% in South Africa
Dose: 1 dose
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Up to two years frozen at –4° F (–20° C), and up to 6 months refrigerated at 36–46° F (2–8° C).
On Feb. 27, 2021, the F.D.A. issued an emergency use authorization for Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine, making it the third coronavirus vaccine available in the United States. It was also the first to be shown to be safe and effective with just one dose rather than two. But the vaccine has not lived up to its initial promise. The company was bedeviled by manufacturing problems, dashing hopes that it could be widely used in poor and lower-income countries, especially in Africa. And over time, rare blood clotting led the F.D.A. to restrict its use in the United States. On May 5, 2022, the agency announced that the vaccine would be limited to adults who cannot or refuse to get the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, citing safety concerns.
On Jan. 29, 2021, Johnson & Johnson announced that the trial had proven that the vaccine was safe and effective, and the F.D.A. released a similar analysis on Feb. 24. Johnson & Johnson published a paper on the trial in the New England Journal of Medicine on April 21, 2021. With a single shot, the vaccine had an efficacy of 66 percent, although it varied from country to country, likely due to variants and other factors. Efficacy against severe disease was higher, at 76 percent.
Results from a trial in which the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was given six months after a two-dose regimen of Comirnaty showed that the mix-and-match approach significantly boosted immune responses.
In a final analysis of the Phase 3 trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine on Feb. 9, 2022, the researchers determined that the vaccine was 56.3 percent effective against moderate to severe disease, and that the effectiveness dropped to 52.9 percent after four weeks.
Later studies have also demonstrated that the vaccine’s effectiveness was waning. Results from a French trial among more than one million older adults, published on March 2, 2022, suggests that individuals who receive the Johnson & Johnson vaccine are five times more likely to be hospitalized from Covid-19 than those who receive Comirnaty.
The European Union reached a deal on Oct. 8, 2020 for 200 million doses. But after concerns about rare blood clots emerged, reports surfaced that the E.U. might not renew its contract with the company.
A coalition of African countries announced on March 29, 2021, that it had secured up to 400 million doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine through 2022. COVAX, an international collaboration to deliver the vaccine equitably across the world, announced a separate deal for 500 million doses. But manufacturing problems slowed these deliveries. By September, COVAX had lowered its 2021 forecast of Johnson & Johnson vaccines to only 180 million doses. On Nov. 30, South African company Aspen Pharmacare said that it was finalizing a deal with Johnson & Johnson to market and distribute the vaccine in Africa. In March 2022, the South African company Aspen Pharmacare announced that it had signed the agreement with Johnson & Johnson to distribute the vaccine, dubbed Aspenovax, throughout Africa. But the following month the company said it might have to shut down its Aspenovax factory because it had yet to receive any orders for Aspenovax from African nationals.
In one study, the company gave 17 trial volunteers a booster shot six months after their initial vaccination. On Aug. 25, the company announced that the boosters lifted levels of antibodies against the coronavirus nine times higher than their initial peak. Later, those levels rose twelvefold.
In a second study, Johnson & Johnson ran a Phase 3 trial in which 32,000 volunteers received either a placebo or two doses of the vaccine, separated by eight weeks. On Sept. 21, the company reported that the pair of shots provided much higher efficacy than just one. In the United States, efficacy against mild to severe Covid-19 rose from 74 percent to 94 percent. Efficacy against severe disease worldwide rose to 100 percent. On Oct. 20, the F.D.A. authorized Johnson & Johnson boosters.
For more details, see How the Johnson & Johnson Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: Canada.
Stopped use in: Denmark, Finland, Slovenia.
Emergency use in: Andorra, Australia, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Botswana, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Egypt, European Union, Ghana, Gabon, Greenland, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica, Kenya, Kuwait, Libya, Liechtenstein, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, South Korea, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States, Vietnam, Zambia, Zimbabwe. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization. Endorsed by the Africa Regulatory Taskforce.
Updated May 6, 2022
Johnson & Johnson
vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
FINLAND
CANADA
SOUTH
KOREA
U.S.
LIBYA
BAHRAIN
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
ZAMBIA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Johnson & Johnson
vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
FINLAND
CANADA
SOUTH
KOREA
LIBYA
U.S.
BAHRAIN
NIGERIA
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
ZAMBIA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Johnson &
Johnson
vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
FINLAND
CANADA
SOUTH
KOREA
LIBYA
U.S.
NIGERIA
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
ZAMBIA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Johnson & Johnson
vaccine
CANADA
U.S.
MEXICO
BRAZIL
CHILE
EUROPEAN
UNION
FINLAND
SOUTH
KOREA
LIBYA
BAHRAIN
NIGERIA
INDIA
ZAMBIA
AUSTRALIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Stopped use
PHASE 3
In 2019, researchers at the University of Hong Kong and Xiamen University created a nasal-spray vaccine for the flu based on a genetically weakened form of the influenza virus. In early 2020, they engineered the vaccine to produce part of the coronavirus spike protein as well. On Sept. 9, they received approval to start clinical trials in partnership with Beijing Wantai Biological Pharmacy. They registered a Phase 1 trial on March 22, 2021. At a June 11 press conference, a researcher for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention said that this vaccine has completed Phase 2 trials. And on Sept. 22, the researchers registered a Phase 3 trial. In January 2022, the University of Hong Kong registered a new trial to test the vaccine as a booster. The researchers are receiving $5.4 million in support from CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Updated Jan. 26, 2022
PHASE 3
In 2020, researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York developed a Covid-19 vaccine based on a virus called Newcastle Disease Virus, or NDV for short. NDV is a bird pathogen and does not cause symptoms in humans. The researchers engineered NDV to carry the gene for a modified version of the coronavirus spike protein called HexaPro, developed at the University of Texas. They then grew the modified virus in chicken eggs. The researchers inactivated the NDVs with chemicals and combined them with immune-boosting chemicals called adjuvants. The researchers found that the vaccine, called NDV-HXP-S, produced high levels of coronavirus antibodies in mice and hamsters. They published the results of their experiments in November.
NDV-HXP-S could potentially help low- to middle-income countries secure their own supplies of Covid-19 vaccines. The Newcastle Disease Virus can be safely grown in large quantities in chicken eggs, the same way influenza vaccines have been produced since the 1950s. As a result, the vaccine could be very cheap to make. Those advantages attracted interest from four countries, all of which licensed the vaccine and launched trials. But as of August 2022, the trials had either been abandoned or had yet to deliver final results.
In Thailand, Mahidol University and the Government Pharmaceutical Organization, a state-run drug manufacturer licensed the vaccine and launched clinical trials in February 2021. The Phase 1 trial results showed that the vaccine showed an acceptable safety profile and produced promising levels of antibodies. A Phase 2 trial started in August.
Avi-Mex in Mexico also licensed NDV-HXP-S under the name Patria, which the company delivers as a nasal spray, Preliminary results from the Phase 1 trial, released in February 2022, suggest that the vaccine is safe. The company registered a Phase 2 trial in January 2022, with a primary completion date of April 2022. As of August 2022, however, the company had not reported the results of the trial, nor had they registered a Phase 3 trial.
In June, Brazil’s Butantan Institute launched a Phase 1 trial of the vaccine, known there as Butanvac. On April 29, 2022, the institute registered a Phase 2/3 trial. But in July 2022, Globo reported that the trial had not yet been authorized to proceed.
Meanwhile, the Institute of Vaccines and Medical Biologicals in Vietnam launched trials of its own, dubbing the vaccine Covivac. In August they advanced to Phase 2 trials. In January 2022, the institute announced that the vaccine was safe and produced better antibody levels than the AstraZeneca vaccine. Some of the results of the trial were published in June 2022. But the Institute has decided against advancing Covivac to Phase 3.
In March 2022, researchers at Mt. Sinai launched a Phase 1 trial to study NDV-HXP-S as a booster for people vaccinated with other vaccines.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
The Italian biotechnology company ReiThera has developed a Covid-19 vaccine, called GRAd-COV2, that is based on an adenovirus that infects gorillas. Working in collaboration with the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome, they found that it produced strong levels of antibodies in mice and monkeys. In July 2020, they launched a Phase 1 clinical trial. In November, they announced that the vaccine was well tolerated and produced antibodies, and released a report on the trial.
In March 2021, researchers launched a Phase 2 trial of the vaccine, which delivered encouraging results in July. But it remained unclear if ReiThera would be able to advance to a final Phase 3 trial.
In May, Reuters reported, a court in Italy struck down the government’s plan to fund the Phase 3 trial. The government later said it was ready to support the vaccine trial, but has yet to offer up the funds. In November 2021, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded ReiThera a grant of $1.4 million to continue to develop the vaccine.
Updated Dec. 3, 2021
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Researchers at Washington University designed a nasal spray vaccine that can produce high levels of coronavirus antibodies in mice with just a single dose. It contains a chimpanzee adenovirus engineered to carry the spike protein gene. The Indian drug maker Bharat Biotech licensed the technology, and in February 2021 they won approval to launch a Phase 1 trial of a vaccine, which they named BBV154. The company started a Phase 2 trial in September 2021. On Jan. 28, 2022, it announced that it had received approval from India’s Drugs Controller General to conduct a Phase 3 trial for BBV154 as a booster; the trial began in March 2022. On Aug. 15, 2022, Bharat announced that it had completed the clinical development of BBV154 and had submitted its data to Indian regulators for authorization.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
PHASE 2
Researchers at City of Hope, a California biomedical research institute, created a vaccine based on a weakened form of a virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA for short. They added two coronavirus genes to the MVA virus — one for the spike protein, and one for another protein called nucleocapsid. They are testing the vaccine, called COH04S1, specifically for people with immune systems impaired by cancer and other disorders. Many of them do not produce a strong immune response to authorized vaccines based on mRNA. The City of Hope researchers reasoned that COH04S1 might work better.
City of Hope launched a Phase 1 trial in November 2020, giving the vaccine to healthy volunteers. They found that COH04S1 was safe and produced a promising level of antibodies. The researchers moved on to a Phase 2 trial in September 2021, giving the vaccine to immunocompromised volunteers.
On Nov. 9, 2021, GeoVax announced that it has been granted exclusive rights to develop COH04S1, and market it worldwide. GeoVax dosed the first participant in a Phase 2 booster trial in December 2021.
Updated March 18, 2022
PHASE 2
While many vaccines are given as injections, some vaccines can be taken as a pill. Oral vaccines have been approved for diseases including polio, cholera, and typhoid fever. The small San Francisco company Vaxart specializes in developing oral vaccines. They have created and tested pills for influenza and other diseases. Last spring Vaxart began work on an oral vaccine for Covid-19. It contains an adenovirus called Ad5 (the same viral vector in CanSinoBio’s vaccine and in Russia’s Sputnik V).
When Vaxart gave the pill to mice, they produced antibodies against the coronavirus. Mice don’t suffer symptoms of Covid-19, however, so the researchers then switched to hamsters, which do. They found that the vaccine pill not only dramatically reduced the amount of coronavirus in sick hamsters, but also protected them from two important symptoms of the disease: weight loss and swollen lungs. More studies on monkeys released in February 2022 showed that the vaccine produced antibodies against a range of variants.
The company’s stock price increased 3,600 percent in the first half of 2020. In June, The New York Times reported, a hedge fund that partly controlled the company sold off most of its shares, netting over $200 million in profits. In the wake of that reporting, the Department of Justice began investigating the company, while a number of shareholder lawsuits were brought against Vaxart, its executives and its board.
In October 2020, the company began giving the pill to volunteers in a Phase 1 clinical trial. On Feb. 3, 2021, Vaxart announced that the trial revealed no serious safety concerns. While the pill produced a response from T cells, it didn’t produce encouraging neutralizing antibodies. Its stock price plunged 60 percent on the news.
On Feb. 25, 2021, the company announced it would advance to a Phase 2 trial in the second quarter of 2021, but manufacturing problems forced them to delay the launch.
On Oct. 5, Vaxart registered a Phase 2 trial. In the new study, the company is testing its pill as a primary vaccine on unvaccinated volunteers, and as a booster for people who have already received an authorized vaccine. The researchers dosed their first participant on Oct. 26. In May 2022, the company said they expected results in the third quarter of 2022.
Updated May 15, 2022
PHASE 2
The California-based company ImmunityBio created a vaccine using the Ad5 adenovirus, the same one used by CanSinoBio and the Gamaleya Institute in Russia. ImmunityBio engineered the Ad5 virus to carry genes for two genes from the coronavirus. In addition to the spike protein, it also carries the gene for a protein called nucleocapsid. The company hopes that this combination will provoke a strong immune response.
The company found that the vaccine protects monkeys from the coronavirus. ImmunityBio launched a Phase 1 trial of a Covid-19 vaccine in October 2020 in the United States and another in South Africa in January. In February 2021, the company registered a Phase 1 trial of an oral version of the vaccine.
On May 25, the company announced that it would study how well their candidate works as a booster shot for those who already received other vaccines. It said on Dec. 20 that Phase 2 trials of the booster are ongoing, and serious adverse effects have not been reported. Phase 3 trials could begin in early 2022. Researchers are also testing a nasal spray version.
The chairman, C.E.O. and Global Chief Scientific and Medical Officer of ImmunityBio is billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, the owner of the Los Angeles Times.
Updated Dec. 22, 2021
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
In April 2020, the South Korean biotech company Cellid began to develop a vaccine for Covid-19. The vaccine, called AdCLD-CoV19, was based on a combination of two strains of adenoviruses, called Ad5 and Ad35. After testing the vaccine on monkeys, Cellid entered into a partnership with the South Korean chemical manufacturer LG Chem to manufacture the vaccine.
In December 2020, Cellid registered a Phase 1 trial for AdCLD-CoV19, and a Phase 2 trial launched in June 2021. But the results were disappointing, leading the company to reformulate a new version of the vaccine, called AdCLD-CoV19-1.
Cellid finished administering the updated vaccine to Phase 1 volunteers in October 2021 and applied to run a Phase 2/3 trial the following month. At the time, a Cellid official told the Korean Biomedical Review that the company would compare the impacts of one and doses in the Phase 2 portion of the trial before moving to Phase 3. Cellid said on Aug. 8 that it decided to move the Phase 2 trial in Kenya and Tanzania after having difficulty finding eligible participants in Korea.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Russian biotechnology company BIOCAD has developed a vaccine that uses a type of virus known as an adenovirus-associated virus as a vector. The virus, called AAV-5, carries a gene encoding part of the spike protein from the coronavirus. They registered a Phase 1/2 trial for the vaccine, called BCD-250, on Sept. 8, 2021.
Updated Sept. 13, 2021
PHASE 1
Three decades ago, the German Center for Infection Research developed a smallpox vaccine from a harmless virus called Modified Vaccinia Ankara, or MVA for short. In recent years, they adapted it to create a vaccine for MERS, a disease caused by another coronavirus.
In the spring of 2020, they made an MVA-based vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that is causing the Covid-19 pandemic. It carries the gene for the spike protein, which is produced inside cells that it invades. On Sept. 29, 2020, the center and a consortium of German universities registered a Phase 1 trial. In January 2021, the center announced that their initial formulation provided disappointing results and had postponed the trial until they updated it. They said that they resumed the trial with an updated version of the vaccine on July 16, 2021, and completed the trial that August.
The researchers announced in November that they are evaluating an MVA-based vaccine in Phase 1 trials as a booster and in unvaccinated individuals. They registered the trial on Feb. 7, 2022.
Updated Feb. 8, 2022
PHASE 1
Gritstone bio has developed experimental vaccines in recent years that teach the immune system to attack tumors. In 2020, they constructed a vaccine for Covid-19 that presents a number of targets in the coronavirus for the immune system to attack.
The researchers constructed a piece of DNA that encodes the entire spike protein of the coronavirus. In addition, it encodes instructions for building small pieces of other viral proteins called nucleocapsid and ORF3a. They then inserted this cassette into the genes of a chimpanzee adenovirus. The spike protein provokes the body to make antibodies, while the pieces of other proteins train the immune system to recognize infected cells and kill them.
In addition, the researchers created an RNA molecule with the same genetic instructions, which they put in a shell. Once the shell slips into a cell, the RNA molecule can make copies of itself, and the cell then makes proteins from those copies.
In a Phase 1 trial launched in March 2021, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is testing how well these two vaccines work together, with the chimpanzee adenovirus serving as the first dose and the self-amplifying mRNA as the second. The researchers hope that this combination will produce a better immune response than two doses of either vaccine. In a May 2022 company update, Gritstone bio said that its vaccine program was continuing.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 1
Meissa Vaccines has developed a vaccine that can be delivered as a spray or drops into the nose. To make the vaccine, researchers started off with another virus, called respiratory syncytial virus (RSV for short). The researchers introduced mutations into the RSV virus’s genes so that it replicated too slowly to cause disease. Then they added a gene for the coronavirus spike protein, so that the weakened RSV viruses could present it to the immune system. A study on monkeys released in July 2021 showed that the vaccine could produce antibodies in the noses of the animals and protect them from Covid-19. The initial data from a Phase 1 trial, announced Oct. 28, indicate that the vaccine can also produce high levels of antibodies against the coronavirus in people’s noses. The full results of the trial will be released in 2022. Meissa told Bloomberg News in April 2022 that it is testing the vaccine as a booster and plans to begin a trial in children. A representative from Meissa described the ongoing Phase 1 trial at a July 2022 White House vaccine summit.
Updated July 29, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at Oklahoma-based Tetherex Pharmaceuticals have created a vaccine that uses genetically engineered viruses to develop immunity. They registered a Phase 1 trial in Australia on April 9, 2021. Mayo Clinic announced a deal to develop and market the vaccine technology worldwide on July 6. A spokesperson for Tetherex said on Jan. 18, 2022, that the trial remains ongoing. A change to the trial record from April 2022 shows that the researchers expect the study to end in August.
Updated May 6, 2022
PHASE 1
Scientists at the University of Georgia and the University of Iowa have developed a vaccine based on canine parainfluenza virus, which has never been found to cause disease in humans. They engineered it to carry proteins from the coronavirus. The vaccine, called CVXGA1, is administered as a nasal spray. In July 2021, the researchers published a study showing that a single dose of the vaccine could protect mice and ferrets against Covid-19. A spin-off company called CyanVac took the intranasal vaccine, called CVXGA1, to Phase 1 trials the same month, and enrolled the first participant in late September. In a February 2022 update to the trial registry, the researchers opened the study to adults who had previously received other vaccines. In July 2022, CyanVac’s founder described the ongoing Phase 1 trial at a vaccine summit at the White House.
Updated July 29, 2022
PHASE 1
Researchers at Australian biotechnology company EnGeneIC have modified their cancer treatment platform to carry a molecular payload that targets the coronavirus. They are producing the vaccine, known as COVID-19-EDV, primarily for people with compromised immune systems. On Sept. 7, 2021, EnGeneIC announced that it had begun a Phase 1 trial in Australia. EnGeneIC signed an agreement with ImmunityBio in November 2021 to develop and manufacture its vaccine worldwide. EnGeneIC said on June 28, 2022, that the vaccine stimulates the creation of antibodies against “all” variants.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
PHASE 1
Canadian researchers at McMaster University are testing the effectiveness of two viral vector vaccines as a booster in adults who have already received three doses of an mRNA vaccine. They plan to administer the candidates into the lungs using a nebulizer. On Oct. 26, 2021 the researchers registered a Phase 1 trial.
Updated June 29, 2022
ABANDONED
In the spring of 2020, the Israel Institute for Biological Research started work on a coronavirus vaccine based on vesicular stomatitis viruses. They engineered the viruses to carry the gene for the coronavirus spike protein. On Oct. 25, the Israeli government announced that the vaccine, called Brilife, would be going into a Phase 1 trial. In January 2021, the vaccine moved on to a Phase 2 trial. In July, Israel formed a partnership with the American company NRx Pharmaceuticals to advance research on Brilife in studies to be conducted in Israel, Georgia, and the Ukraine.
NRx registered a Phase 2/3 trial in August 2021. The trial was originally planned for 550 volunteers, but the company increased the number to 20,000 after a month. It was slated to end by February 2022, but results have yet to be made public. In an interview, the director of the Israel Institute for Biological Research said that the results would come in the next several months.
On March 31, 2022, NRx announced that it would no longer pursue developing Brilife.
Updated April 4, 2022
ABANDONED
The American company Merck acquired the Austrian firm Themis Bioscience in June 2020 to develop their vaccine, which had been originally developed at Institut Pasteur. The vaccine used a weakened measles virus that carries a gene for the coronavirus spike protein. Researchers launched a Phase 1 trial in August 2020. On Jan. 25, 2021, Merck announced it was abandoning the effort, because the vaccine provoked a response that was weaker than a natural infection. In March they entered into a partnership with Johnson & Johnson to help produce their vaccine instead.
Updated March 4, 2022
ABANDONED
In addition to its project with Themis, Merck partnered with IAVI on a second viral vector vaccine. It was based on vesicular stomatitis viruses, the same approach Merck successfully used to produce the first approved vaccine for Ebola. They designed their coronavirus vaccine as a pill, which could have made it easier to distribute than syringes for injections. Merck and IAVI received $38 million from the United States government to support their research, and on September 30, 2020, they registered a Phase 1 trial. But on Jan. 25, 2021, they announced they were abandoning the effort because the vaccine failed to trigger an immune system comparable to what happens in a natural infection of Covid-19.
Updated Jan. 25, 2021
ABANDONED
Vaccine name: AdCOVID
Efficacy: Unknown
Dose: 1 dose
Type: Nasal spray
Storage: Refrigerated
Maryland-based Altimmune is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing vaccines delivered by nasal spray. They developed a nasal spray vaccine for Covid-19, delivering the Ad5 adenovirus to the airway. Studies on the immune system suggests that a nasal spray could be more effective for blocking the transmission of the virus than vaccines given by injection. In a study on mice, Altimmune researchers found that a single dose of the vaccine gave complete protection from a lethal infection of coronaviruses. On Dec. 22, 2020, the company registered a Phase 1 clinical trial of a single dose of the vaccine.
But on June 29, 2021, Altimmune announced they were abandoning their Covid-19 vaccine. In their Phase 1 trial, they gave the spray to 80 volunteers and found that they produced substantially lower levels of antibodies than produced by Covid-19 vaccines that have already been authorized.
Updated June 30, 2021
Protein-Based Vaccines
Vaccines that contain coronavirus proteins but no genetic material. Some vaccines contain whole proteins, and some contain fragments of them. Some pack many of these molecules on nanoparticles.
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CANADA, SOUTH KOREA
EMERGENCY USE IN U.S., OTHER COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: NVX-CoV2373 (also known as Covovax or Nuvaxovid)
Efficacy: 90.4%
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable in refrigerator
With massive support from the U.S. government, Maryland-based Novavax developed a highly effective protein-based vaccine in 2020. But manufacturing woes drastically slowed its rollout. It wasn’t until November 2021 that the company began gaining emergency authorizations, including from India, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the European Union and the World Health Organization. The F.D.A. authorized the vaccine on July 13, 2022.
In May 2020, the company launched trials for a Covid-19 vaccine, which they named NVX-CoV2373. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations invested $384 million to support the research. In July, the U.S. government awarded Novavax another $1.75 billion to support the vaccine’s clinical trials and manufacturing.
On March 11, 2021, Novavax reported that its United Kingdom trial determined an efficacy rate of 96 percent against the original coronavirus, and an efficacy of 86 percent against the Alpha variant. In a study on nearly 30,000 volunteers in the United States in Mexico, the vaccine’s efficacy was 90.4 percent. Results from a pediatric study suggest that the vaccine’s efficacy was 82 percent against the Delta variant.
On Feb. 28, 2022, Novavax released results from a six-month follow up on its Phase 3 clinical trial in the United Kingdom. The vaccine’s efficacy against Covid waned slightly to 82.7 percent. But its efficacy against severe disease remained at 100 percent.
Politico reported on Oct. 19, 2021, that Novavax was still struggling to manufacture enough doses to meet its targets, causing the company’s stock to drop 24 percent. In March 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that the company had resolved its manufacturing problems.
On March 22, 2022, India authorized the vaccine for use in adolescents, Novavax’s first approval in that age group. European health officials extended its authorization to adolescents on July 5, followed by Australia and Japan later that month.
After the United States authorized the vaccine for adults in July 2022, it expanded the authorization to adolescents the following month.
On June 28, 2022, Novavax presented new data at an FDA advisory meeting on updating Covid vaccines for the winter. Both Novavax’s prototype vaccine and a Omicron-specific vaccine produced antibodies against new Omicron subvariants.
Novavax announced on July 19 that it was working with SK bioscience to manufacture the Omicron-specific vaccine in pre-filled syringes as early as 2023.
On Aug. 15, 2022, Novavax applied to the F.D.A. for authorization of its vaccine as a booster in adults.
For more details, see How the Novavax Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: Canada, South Korea.
Emergency use in: Australia, Bangladesh, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Singapore, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States. Conditional authorization in the European Union. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
Novavax vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
SOUTH
KOREA
CANADA
U.S.
PHILIPPINES
INDONESIA
MEXICO
INDIA
AUSTRALIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Novavax vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
SOUTH
KOREA
CANADA
U.S.
PHILIPPINES
MEXICO
INDONESIA
INDIA
AUSTRALIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Novavax vaccine
EUROPEAN
UNION
SOUTH
KOREA
CANADA
U.S.
PHILIPPINES
MEXICO
INDONESIA
INDIA
AUSTRALIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Novavax vaccine
CANADA
U.S.
MEXICO
EUROPEAN
UNION
SOUTH
KOREA
PHILIPPINES
INDONESIA
INDIA
AUSTRALIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN TURKMENISTAN
EARLY USE IN RUSSIA
Vaccine name: EpiVacCorona, Aurora-CoV
Efficacy: Not effective
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable in refrigerator for up to two years
EpiVacCorona, also known as Aurora-CoV, was approved in Russia even before Phase 3 trials were launched. A total of 13 million doses of EpiVacCorona were produced in 2021. Even now, however, the results of the Phase 3 trial remain unpublished. Meanwhile, many critics have questioned whether the vaccine actually works. In a study released in May 2022, the vaccine failed to show any effectiveness at protecting people from lung injury due to Covid-19.
EpiVacCorona was created by the Vector Institute, a Russian biological research center. The vaccine contains small portions of viral proteins, known as peptides. The institute registered a Phase 1/2 trial for EpiVacCorona in August 2020, the results of which were published in an obscure Russian journal in late March 2021. But outside experts pointed out serious flaws in the study.
Less than two months after the launch of the Phase 1/2 trial, on Oct. 14, 2021, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has granted regulatory approval to the vaccine, making it the second one to receive that designation after the Gamaleya Institute’s Sputnik V vaccine. The following month, a Phase 3 trial began. In January 2021, without any results yet from the trial, Russia launched a mass vaccination campaign that included EpiVacCorona. Critics in Russia asked the government there to stop administering the vaccine until the Phase 3 trial results are published, to no avail. On July 5, 2021, Tass reported that the Vector Institute is registering the vaccine under the name Aurora-CoV.
In February 2021, Tass reported that the immune response from EpiVacCorona lasted “for approximately a year,” but the vaccine’s creators did not publish the scientific details behind this claim.
On March 3, 2021, the Vector Institute registered their Phase 3 trial on an international registry. The entry now indicates that the trial ended in December 2021. But the Vector Institute has yet to publish the results.
In January 2022, the Moscow Times reported that Russia had halted orders for EpiVacCorona. But the following month, Tass reported that the vaccine’s manufacturers agreed to produce more than 50 million doses of the vaccine for foreign companies.
Approved for use in: Cambodia,
Early use in: Russia.
Updated June 3, 2022
Vector Institute
vaccine
RUSSIA
TURKMENISTAN
VENEZUELA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vector Institute
vaccine
RUSSIA
TURKMENISTAN
VENEZUELA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vector Institute
vaccine
RUSSIA
TURKMENISTAN
VENEZUELA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vector Institute
vaccine
VENEZUELA
RUSSIA
TURKMENISTAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: ZF2001, Zifivax
Efficacy: 75.7% against symptomatic Covid-19, 87.6% against severe to critical disease
Dose: 3 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
The Chinese company Anhui Zhifei Longcom and the Institute of Medical Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences partnered to make a vaccine. Their candidate is composed of an adjuvant, along with a section of the spike protein called the receptor-binding domain. They launched Phase 2 trials in July 2020, followed by a Phase 3 trial with 29,000 volunteers in December. In March 2021, Indonesia became the first country to authorize the vaccine, called Zifivax, for emergency use. Anhui Zhifei received a conditional authorization for the vaccine from China on March 2, 2022.
The company announced on Aug. 27, 2021, that their vaccine had an efficacy rate of 82 percent against Covid-19 of any severity. In the final results of their Phase 3 trial, published on May 5, 2022, Zifivax proved to be 75.7 percent against symptomatic Covid-19, 87.6 percent against severe to critical disease. In a follow-up trial, researchers found that a Zifivax booster produced a strong immune response from people who were initially vaccinated with a shot of CanSino’s Convidecia vaccine.
Emergency use in: China, Colombia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Uzbekistan.
Updated June 13, 2022
Anhui Zhifei Longcom
and IMCAS vaccine
UZBEKISTAN
CHINA
PAKISTAN
COLOMBIA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Anhui Zhifei Longcom
and IMCAS
vaccine
UZBEKISTAN
CHINA
PAKISTAN
COLOMBIA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Anhui Zhifei
Longcom and
IMCAS
UZBEKISTAN
CHINA
PAKISTAN
COLOMBIA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Anhui Zhifei Longcom
and IMCAS
vaccine
COLOMBIA
UZBEKISTAN
CHINA
PAKISTAN
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN SEVERAL COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Soberana 2, or PastoCoVac (in Iran)
Efficacy: 71% with two doses, 92.4 % with Soberana Plus booster
Cuba’s Finlay Vaccine Institute developed a vaccine known as Soberana 2. It contains a part of the coronavirus spike protein, fused to a standard tetanus vaccine to make it stable. Soberana 2 also contains aluminum hydroxide as an adjuvant to boost the immune system.
After testing Soberana 2 in animals, Finlay researchers started a Phase 1 trial in October 2020, followed by a Phase 2 trial in December. On March 3, 2021, the Finlay Vaccine Institute registered a Phase 3 trial for Soberana 2, with plans to recruit 44,010 participants in Havana. Researchers began dosing trial participants in Iran on April 26. The trial showed that two doses of Soberana 2 have an efficacy of 71 percent against symptomatic Covid-19.
Before the Phase 3 trial delivered its results, however, the Cuban government began rolling out Soberana 2 on May 12 in a mass vaccination campaign. The government announced plans to make 100 million doses of Soberana 2 in order to vaccinate its entire population, pinning hopes on the vaccine as a source of economic benefit to the island. On Dec. 13, Cuban authorities predicted that the island nation will be the first in Latin America to completely vaccinate its population, which it expects will happen by June 2022.
Cuban scientists also tested a combination of Soberana 2 and a boost of another Cuba-made vaccine called Soberana Plus. It lifts the efficacy of the vaccine to 92.4 percent, and 100 percent against severe Covid-19. The Finlay Vaccine Institute announced on June 10 that it had received approval to begin a trial of the combined vaccines in children. Preliminary results from the pediatric trial suggest the combination may be more effective in children than adults. Later results showed that Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus had an efficacy of 90.1 percent against the Omicron variant in children.
Cuba expanded its Soberana 2 vaccination campaign to include children in September.
On June 29, 2021, Iran’s health minister announced that Soberana 2 has received emergency use approval. The Pasteur Institute of Iran is marketing the vaccine in the country as PastoCoVac. In May 2022, Iran opened a factory to manufacture Soberana 2 in-country.
On Aug. 20, 2021, the Cuban government announced the emergency authorization of both Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus. Just two weeks later, on September 2, Cuba authorized Soberana 2 for children between the age of 2 and 18. In their announcement, Cuban regulators said that the immune response in children was similar to adults who received Soberana 2. The researchers said in April 2022 that they will begin a study for the vaccine in infants.
Emergency use in: Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela.
Updated July 29, 2022
Soberana 2
vaccine
CUBA
IRAN
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana 2
vaccine
CUBA
IRAN
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana 2
vaccine
CUBA
IRAN
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana 2
vaccine
CUBA
NICARAGUA
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN CUBA
Vaccine name: Abdala
Efficacy: 92.28%
In November 2020, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba launched a trial on a coronavirus vaccine called Abdala. The name is from a poem by the nineteenth-century poet José Marti. The Abdala vaccine consists of a piece of the coronavirus spike protein called the receptor binding domain, and is delivered in three doses. On Feb. 1, 2021, the center held a press conference to announce the start of a Phase 2 trial. A Phase 3 trial involving up to 48,000 participants was launched on March 18. On May 12, while the Phase 3 trial was still underway, the Cuban government began rolling out Abdala in a mass vaccination campaign, in the hopes of reining in a surge of cases. Venezuela began using the vaccine in late June.
On June 21, 2021, Cuban officials reported that Abdala had an efficacy of 92.28 percent. In a follow-up study released in April 2022, Cuban researchers estimated that the Abdala vaccine has an effectiveness of about 94 percent against severe disease and death. The Cuban government granted emergency use authorization for the vaccine on July 9, 2021. In September, Cuba agreed to sell 10 million doses of Abdala to Vietnam, which has granted the vaccine emergency authorization. In Venezuela, meanwhile, the National Academy of Medicine expressed concern over the lack of published scientific research on Abdala’s safety and efficacy.
Cuban researchers announced on Jan. 25, 2022, that dosing individuals with Abdala and Soberana 1 could generate an immune response against the Omicron variant. BioCubaFarma is preparing to send data from its Abdala trials to the World Health Organization to consider for an emergency use listing.
The researchers said in April 2022 that they will use Abdala and Soberana 2 in a new trial in infants.
Emergency use in: Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam.
Updated April 15, 2022
Abdala vaccine
SYRIA
CUBA
MEXICO
VENEZUELA
VIETNAM
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Abdala vaccine
CUBA
SYRIA
MEXICO
VENEZUELA
VIETNAM
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Abdala vaccine
CUBA
SYRIA
MEXICO
VENEZUELA
VIETNAM
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Abdala vaccine
CUBA
MEXICO
VENEZUELA
NICARAGUA
SYRIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN IRAN
Vaccine name: Covax-19, Spikogen
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Flinders University endocrinologist Professor Nikolai Petrovsky developed a vaccine that combines viral proteins with an adjuvant that stimulates the immune system. Dr. Petrovsky founded the company Vaxine to develop the vaccine, called Covax-19 or Spikogen. After promising animal studies, the company launched a Phase 1 trial in June 2020. In May 2021, Vaxine claimed to have gotten promising preliminary results from that trial, but the company failed to get funds for further clinical trials in Australia. Instead, they followed up with a Phase 2 trial in Iran, the results of which were published in April 2022. A Phase 3 trial was also carried out in Iran, but those results have yet to be released.
Despite this lack of public data, Iran issued an emergency authorization for Spikogen in October 2021, to be produced by the Iranian company CinnaGen, and expanded the authorization in January 2022 to include Spikogen as a booster shot. In January 2022, Dr. Petrovsky told the Australian news service News.com.au that the Phase 3 trials in Iran showed Spikogen was 60 to 65 percent effective against the Delta variant. He has not published those results, however.
In late 2021, Vaxine revived its efforts to test Spikogen in Australia, but ran into trouble with regulators. Vaccine experts questioned the effort, since the company had yet to release detailed clinical data showing the safety and efficacy of Spikogen. Vaxine took the unprecedented move of starting a crowdfunding campaign in October 2021 to raise funds for their efforts. By February 2022 they had raised over $1 million. The Australian government gave Vaxine permission to submit clinical data for assessment in December 2021, and the researchers registered a Phase 3 trial for a booster shot of Spikogen on Jan. 4, 2022. Vaxine announced on Feb. 27 that they received approval to begin trials for Spikogen in Australia.
But controversy again arose on March 11, 2022, when The Australian reported that the vaccine produced “no scientific evidence of efficacy” in its Phase 1 trial, according to an investigative committee. The newspaper also said that a research ethics team warned participants in November 2021 of a “low likelihood of its effectiveness.” On March 24, the Australian government fined Vaxine for alleged unlawful advertising of an unapproved COVID-19 vaccine. On March 30, Vaxine ended the crowdfunding campaign, citing “repeated attacks from the media.” The company announced in August 2022 that it had created a version of their vaccine for animals that would be used in Australian zoos.
Emergency use in: Iran.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
Vaxine vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vaxine vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vaxine vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Vaxine vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN TAIWAN
Taiwan-based vaccine maker Medigen created a vaccine containing a combination of spike proteins and an adjuvant from Dynavax. After a series of promising experiments on animals, they began injecting volunteers for a Phase 1 trial in early October 2020, which showed that the vaccine provoked strong immune responses. On Dec. 30, Medigen announced that it had received permission to commence a Phase 2 trial. The first volunteers in the trial were injected in late January 2021. In July, Medigen started another Phase 2 trial on children between 12 and 18 years old. Medigen received permission to begin a Phase 3 trial in Paraguay on July 20, 2021. The World Health Organization selected Medigen’s vaccine as one its first candidates in the Solidarity Trial Vaccine study.
On Oct. 15, 2021, Medigen registered a trial to assess the vaccine’s effectiveness as a booster for those who have received one dose of the Moderna shot. They registered a similar trial on Oct. 27 for adults with two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness announced on Dec. 2 that it pledged up to $2.3 million to help fund a mix-and-match study in which volunteers will get Medigen’s vaccine after a primary vaccination with other Covid-19 shots. On Jan. 31, 2022, Medigen registered a Phase 2 trial of a booster based on the Beta variant. Animal studies suggest that it might provide a broad protection against many coronavirus variants.
Taiwan granted emergency use authorization to the vaccine on July 19, 2021, based on Phase 2 trial results that suggested that volunteers were producing strong levels of antibodies and did not have serious adverse reactions. Taiwan started administering Medigen’s vaccine on Aug. 23. By Oct. 22, Medigen said that 1,362,524 doses had been administered. The company said in March 2022 that it planned to make 100 million doses this year.
In July 2022, Medigen released a report on its Phase 3 trial in Paraguay. In people who had not previously had Covid, the Medigen produced significantly higher antibody levels than AstraZeneca’s vaccines. But the difference was much smaller in people who had already been infected. Additionally, the researchers found that antibodies produced by Medigen were much poorer at neutralizing the Omicron variant.
Emergency use in: Paraguay, Taiwan.
Updated July 23, 2022
Medigen
vaccine
TAIWAN
PARAGUAY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medigen
vaccine
TAIWAN
PARAGUAY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medigen
vaccine
TAIWAN
PARAGUAY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medigen
vaccine
PARAGUAY
TAIWAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN IRAN
On Feb. 7, 2021, Iran announced that it was launching a clinical trial of a second vaccine, known as Cov-Pars Razi and developed by the Razi Vaccine and Serum Research Institute. The vaccine contains fragments of coronavirus spike proteins and is delivered in three doses: two injections and one nasal spray. The researchers began dosing participants for their Phase 2 trial on May 28. In July Razi officials promised that they would be able to produce at least one million doses of the vaccine every month. At the end of August, Iran rolled out a Phase 3 trial. The Tehran Times reported on Oct. 12 that a nasal dose of the vaccine reduces the transmission of the virus by as much as 90 percent. And on Nov. 14, scientists reported that the vaccine stimulates immunity for up to one year. Iranian health officials granted emergency use authorization for the vaccine on Nov. 1. Tasnim News Agency, an Iranian media outlet, reported on Nov. 30 that the researchers began a booster trial comparing the vaccine against the Sinopharm shot. Tasnim later reported that Cov-Pars Razi is three times more effective than the Sinopharm vaccine. The researchers received approval to launch a clinical trial on adolescents in February 2022. But millions of doses remain in the organization’s warehouses as it awaits payment from Iran, Tasnim News Agency reported in July.
Emergency use in: Iran.
Updated July 18, 2022
Razi vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Razi vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Razi vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Razi vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN INDIA, BOTSWANA
Vaccine name: Corbevax
Efficacy: Over 90%
Corbevax is a protein-based vaccine initially authorized in India in December 2021, and then as a booster in June 2022. That authorization was later expanded to children as young as 5. Corbevax was also authorized in Botswana in March 2022.
The research that led to Corbevax was already underway years before the Covid-19 pandemic. After the SARS epidemic in 2002, Baylor College of Medicine researchers began developing a vaccine that could prevent a new outbreak. Despite promising early results, support for the research disappeared. Because the coronaviruses that cause SARS and Covid-19 are very similar, the researchers revived the project in 2020, working in partnership with the Texas Children’s Hospital.
After the Texas researchers demonstrated the promise of the vaccine in preclinical studies, the Indian company Biological E licensed it in August 2020, launching a Phase 1/2 trial in November, combining the viral proteins with an adjuvant made by Dynavax. On Dec. 29, Biological E and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations announced a partnership to advance the development and manufacturing of the vaccine with CEPI initially contributing $5 million to the effort. The United States agreed to give $50 million to expand the company’s production capacity on Oct. 25.
On April 24, 2021, Biological E announced it was starting a Phase 3 trial of the vaccine. Biological E received approval for a Phase 2/3 trial of Corbevax on children on Sept. 2.
On Dec. 28, Biological E reported that it performed better than Covishield, the Indian version of AstraZeneca’s vaccine, while causing half the reported side effects. Based on the level of antibodies produced by people vaccinated with Corbevax, the company estimated its efficacy to be over 90 percent against the original version of the variant.
Corbevax uses standard protein-vaccination technology that’s widely available around the world, making it relatively cheap and easy to produce. Biological E said that it planned to deliver 300 million doses to the Indian government in early 2022, and deliver a billion additional doses worldwide.
Emergency use in: Botswana, India.
Updated June 13, 2022
Corbevax
vaccine
INDIA
BOTSWANA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Corbevax
vaccine
INDIA
BOTSWANA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Corbevax
vaccine
INDIA
BOTSWANA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Corbevax
vaccine
INDIA
BOTSWANA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CANADA
Vaccine name: CoVLP (brand name Covifenz)
Efficacy: 69.5% against symptomatic Covid-19, 78.8% against moderate-to-severe disease
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable in refrigerator
Canada-based Medicago, partly funded by the cigarette maker Philip Morris, developed a Covid-19 vaccine that can be grown in a plant called Nicotiana benthamiana, a wild species related to tobacco. They deliver coronavirus genes into leaves, and the plant cells then create protein shells that mimic the viruses. Canada authorized Medicago’s vaccine, called Cofivenz, on Feb. 24, 2022.
Medicago launched a Phase 1 trial for Cofivenz in July 2020. In that study, they found that their plant-based vaccine, combined with an adjuvant made by GSK, produced promising levels of antibodies in volunteers. A Phase 2 trial also provided encouraging results, followed by the launch of a 24,000-person Phase 3 trial on March 16, 2021. On Dec. 7, Medicago announced that Cofivenz had an efficacy of 75.3% against the Delta variant. No one who got the vaccine was hospitalized or died from Covid-19, but it was not possible to estimate its efficacy against severe disease because there were relatively few cases among volunteers who received the placebo. On May 5, 2022, the final results of the Phase 3 trial were published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showing that Cofivenz had an efficacy of 69.5 percent against symptomatic Covid-19 and 78.8 percent against moderate-to-severe disease.
Medicago said in October 2020 that it had reached an agreement with the government of Canada to supply 76 million doses. In April 2021, the Canadian government announced a rolling review of the company’s vaccine. After the Phase 3 results were unveiled, Medicago submitted them to Canadian health officials for authorization on Dec. 16, and it was authorized two months later. The company has said it also plans to seek authorization in Japan in March 2022.
Medicago also launched an application to the World Health Organization for an emergency use listing. But on March 2, 2022, the W.H.O. rejected its request for pre-qualification, casting doubt on its ultimate success. Bloomberg reported that W.H.O. was concerned about the fact that Medicago is partly funded by a tobacco company. Medicago later withdrew its application. In July 2022, CTV News reported that the Canadian government was seeking a solution so that it could donate its purchased doses to low-income countries.
Approved for use in: Canada (for ages 18–64).
Updated July 23, 2022
Medicago vaccine
CANADA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medicago vaccine
CANADA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medicago vaccine
CANADA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Medicago
vaccine
CANADA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN SOUTH KOREA
Vaccine name: SKYCovione (GBP510)
Efficacy: Stronger immune response than AstraZeneca’s vaccine in a Phase 3 trial.
On June 29, 2022, South Korea authorized SKYCovione, a protein-based vaccine originally developed by researchers at the University of Washington. SKYCovione is a nanoparticle studded with pieces of the coronavirus spike protein.
Experiments on mice showed that it could produce a strong immune response. The South Korean vaccine company SK Bioscience licensed the vaccine and partnered with GSK, to launch a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine in February 2021. Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News reported that people who received the vaccines made five to eight times more antibodies than people who recovered from Covid-19. SK Bioscience received $210.1 million from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations for the development of SKYCovione. In August 2021, the company launched a Phase 3 trial, comparing the vaccine to AstraZeneca’s Vaxzevria vaccine.
In January 2022, the Korean Biomedical Review reported that SK Bioscience was preparing to supply GBP51o to South Korea and the COVAX facility. The company applied for emergency use authorization in the United Kingdom in March 2022.
On April 25, 2022, SK Bioscience announced the results of its Phase 3 trial. They found that volunteers who received the vaccine produced a stronger immune response than people who received the AstraZeneca vaccine. In older people, the results were also promising. SKYCovione produced antibodies against the coronavirus in 95 percent of volunteers 65 or older. The AstraZeneca vaccine only produced antibodies in 79 percent.
With SKYCovione going into use, SK Bioscience launched a Phase 3 trial of the vaccine as a booster on August 15, 2022. It is also developing a “variant-proof” vaccine based on the same nanoparticle design, with a $50 million grant from CEPI.
Updated Aug 26, 2022
SKYCovione
vaccine
SOUTH
KOREA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
SKYCovione
vaccine
SOUTH
KOREA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
SKYCovione
vaccine
SOUTH
KOREA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
SKYCovione
vaccine
SOUTH
KOREA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
Vaccine name: Vidprevtyn
Efficacy: 57.9% against symptomatic Covid-19 (in a trial dominated by variants of concern). 75% efficacy against moderate or severe Covid-19. 100% against severe disease and hospitalization.
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable in refrigerator at 36–46°F (2–8°C)
In early 2020, Sanofi developed a Covid-19 vaccine based on viral proteins they produced with engineered viruses that grow inside insect cells. GSK supplemented these proteins with adjuvants that stimulate the immune system. The vaccine, called Vidprevtyn, is based on the same design Sanofi used to create Flublok, an approved vaccine for influenza. On Feb. 23, 2022, Sanofi announced that it would seek regulatory approval after trials showed it can protect against Covid-19 and produces a strong response as a booster.
The companies launched a Phase 1/2 clinical trial on Vidprevtyn in September 2020. At the time, the vaccine was widely expected to play a major role in tackling the pandemic. In the United States, Operation Warp Speed selected it as one of six vaccines to secure in large quantities, reaching a $2.1 billion agreement for 100 million doses. On Sept. 18 Sanofi closed another deal with the European Union for 300 million doses for an unspecified amount, and later reached an agreement with Canada for up to 72 million doses. In addition, Sanofi agreed to provide 200 million doses to COVAX, an international collaboration to deliver the vaccine equitably across the world. The company expected to move to a Phase 3 trial in December and potentially seek emergency use authorization for Vidprevtyn in the United States by spring 2021. Sanofi announced plans to make up to one billion doses in 2021.
But on Dec. 11, 2020, Sanofi and GSK announced that Vidprevtyn was proving disappointing. While it provided promising levels of antibodies in people under 50, older people did not respond as strongly as they had hoped. The company halted the trial. In January 2021, Sanofi decided to help Pfizer and BioNTech make 100 million doses of their vaccine, and they reached a similar agreement with Johnson & Johnson in February.
Meanwhile, Sanofi developed a stronger formulation of Vidprevtyn. On Feb. 22, 2021, the company launched a new Phase 2 trial, which showed that the new version produced strong immune responses. They began enrolling participants for their Phase 3 trial on May 27. On July 20, 2021, the European Medicines Agency started a rolling review of Vidprevtyn in advance of their application for authorization. In an earnings report on Oct. 28, Sanofi said it expected results from its new Phase 3 trial by the end of 2021, but on Dec. 15, the company announced the trial would continue into early 2022 because too few participants have gotten sick with Covid-19.
Finally, in February 2022, Sanofi had results to share. They found that Vidprevtyn had an efficacy of 57.9 percent against symptomatic Covid-19. This relatively low result may have been the result of the trial taking place after variants of concerns were widespread. The vaccine offered stronger protection against developing a serious case of Covid-19; it had an efficacy of 100 percent versus severe Covid-19 and hospitalizations.
Sanofi has also developed a version of Vidprevtyn that is based on the Beta variant of the coronavirus. After giving the vaccine as a booster to volunteers, they found that it could provoke strong antibodies to other variants, including Omicron. Preliminary data from the tral demonstrated an efficacy of 64.7 percent against symptomatic Covid-19 and 72 percent against Omicron. In June 2022, the company registered a Phase 3 trial of the Beta booster.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 3
In July 2020, researchers at West China Hospital of Sichuan University published a study in Nature describing a vaccine made from the RBD region of the spike protein that could protect mice and monkeys from the coronavirus. To make the vaccine, researchers encoded the RBD region in a gene, which they inserted into a virus. They then infected insect cells with the virus, causing them to make the molecule in huge amounts. On Aug. 24, they launched a Phase 1 trial, and on Nov. 16 they moved to Phase 2 with a study on 960 volunteers. On Jan. 22, 2021, the researchers registered another Phase 2 trial with 4,000 volunteers. A Phase 3 trial began on June 1.
The researchers registered a Phase 2 trial for the vaccine as a booster on July 19.
Updated July 23, 2022
PHASE 3
Vaccine name: Nanocovax
Efficacy: 51% against symptomatic Covid from the Delta variant, 93.9 percent against severe illness and death
On Dec. 10, 2020, Nanogen Biopharmaceutical in Vietnam began recruiting 60 volunteers for a Phase 1 trial of their protein-based vaccine Nanocovax. Vietnam news agencies announced that Nanocovax entered a Phase 2 trial in February 2021. Nanogen researchers reported that in these early studies, the vaccine did not cause any dangerous side effects and promising levels of antibodies. In June, Nanogen launched a Phase 3 trial. Promising preliminary results from the trial have pushed the company to accelerate the process for emergency use authorization in Vietnam. The full analysis of the Phase 3 trial, published on March 23, 2022, found that Nanocovax has an efficacy rate of 93.3 percent against severe illness and death, and an efficacy against symptoms amid the Delta variant of 51.5 percent. In August Vietnam’s Dan Tri news reported that regulators there were still reviewing the vaccine.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 3
Vaccine name: V-01
Efficacy: 47% against disease, as a booster
A subsidiary of Chinese company Livzon Pharmaceutical Group has developed a protein vaccine in collaboration with the Institute of Biophysics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Called V-01, the vaccine completed Phase 1 and 2 trials earlier in 2021. A Phase 3 trial began in the Philippines on Aug. 25 and expanded to Russia in November.
Livzon also registered a series of booster studies. In June 2022, the company released results of one of these trials, which found that their booster had an efficacy of 47 percent.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 3
Researchers at the Lanzhou Institute of Biological Products, Beijing Zhong Sheng Heng Yi Pharmaceutical Technology and Zhengzhou University are testing a vaccine that is grown in Chinese hamster ovary cells. They registered a Phase 1/2 trial on May 3, 2021. In October 2021 they registered a Phase 3 trial to test their vaccine as a booster for an inactivated virus vaccine.
Updated Oct. 19, 2021
PHASE 3
Shionogi, a Japanese pharmaceutical giant, launched a Phase 1/2 trial of a coronavirus vaccine on Dec. 16, 2020. The company developed it in collaboration with the National Institute of Infectious Diseases and Kyushu University. The vaccine is based on a coronavirus protein which is produced in insect cells by genetically altered viruses. They combined the protein with an adjuvant to stimulate the immune system.
For months, the trial advanced slowly and ultimately delivered disappointing results. In the summer, Shionogi switched to a new adjuvant and started a new Phase 1/2 trial in August 2021. Results from the trial, released on Dec. 7, proved more encouraging, showing that the vaccine produced levels of antibodies on par with those in people who recovered from Covid-19. On Oct. 21, the company announced that it had moved to a Phase 2/3 trial. In May 2022, it expanded the trial to include volunteers as young as 12.
In December 2021, Shionogi also started trials of their vaccine as a booster. On March 4, 2022, the company announced that one of the trials demonstrated that people who get the Shionogi vaccine produced antibody levels on par with a Pfizer-BioNTech booster.
Shionogi President Isao Teshirogi said in May 2022 that the company could send data to the Japanese government for authorization as early as June, but that month passed without any further developments.
Updated July 23, 2022
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN IRAN
Iranian researchers at the Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences developed a protein-based vaccine against the coronavirus. On June 27, 2021, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced that the vaccine, called Noora, had entered Phase 1 trials. The researchers registered a Phase 2 trial on Oct. 11. The head of Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences said in December that 5 million doses of the vaccine have been produced. Noora entered Phase 3 trials on Jan. 2. dosing a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as the first participant. After completing Phase 3 trials, Noora received emergency use authorization from the Iranian government, the Tehran Times reported on March 1, 2022.
Emergency use in: Iran.
Updated March 1, 2022
Noora vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Noora vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Noora vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Noora vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
Dallas-based Vaxxinity is testing a vaccine called UB-612 containing parts of several viral proteins. (Vaxxinity formed in April 2021 when the companies COVAXX and United Neuroscience combined.)
On Sept. 11, 2020, COVAXX registered a Phase 1 trial in Taiwan which led to 100 percent of volunteers producing antibodies without any serious side effects. In February 2021, COVAXX launched a Phase 2 trial, also in Taiwan, as well as a Phase 2/3 trial in Brazil, India and other countries. On Nov. 25, 2021, Covaxx announced agreements with countries including Brazil, Ecuador, and Peru to deliver more than 140 million doses for $2.8 billion. In a June 21, 2021 press release, Vaxxinity said it expected to deliver the vaccine by the end of the summer, but in August, Taiwan regulators rejected their application for emergency authorization. In Vaxxinity’s October 2021 filing for an initial public offering, the company said it was appealing the decision.
On February 11, 2022, Vaxxinity announced that antibodies taken from volunteers in their Phase 1 and 2 trials were potent against the Omicron variant. In the announcement the company said it was planning a Phase 3 trial for later in 2022. In an April announcement the company presented further evidence demonstrating that the vaccine can protect against variants.
The company registered a Phase 3 trial on March 24, 2022 comparing a booster dose of UB-612 with vaccines from Sinopharm, AstraZeneca and Pfizer and BioNTech, and began dosing participants on March 28. The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations said on April 7 that it would help fund trials for UB-612, pledging up to $9.25 million.
Updated April 8, 2022
PHASE 3
Researchers at Spanish animal health company HIPRA have created a recombinant protein vaccine against the coronavirus in humans. They registered a Phase 1/2 trial for their candidate on Aug. 16, 2021, followed by a Phase 2/3 trial on Nov. 15. On Feb. 1, 2022, Spanish health authorities authorized HIPRA researchers to move to Phase 3.
They are also testing the vaccine in children, adolescents and immunocompromised individuals, according to a press release from January 2022.
The researchers registered a Phase 3 booster trial on Feb. 18, 2022. On July 6, 2022, HIPRA released a study measuring the levels of antibodies its booster produced against different variants. They found that those levels were as high or higher than those of a Comirnaty booster.
On Aug. 2, the European Commission inked a deal with HIPRA for its member states to buy as many as 250 million doses of the vaccine, pending authorization, for use as a booster.
Updated Aug. 6, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Vaccine name: SCB-2019
Efficacy: 79% against disease from the Delta variant, 100% against hospitalization
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Stable at 2-8 degrees C for 6 months, room temperature for one month
Clover Biopharmaceuticals developed a vaccine containing the spike protein from coronaviruses. To further stimulate the immune system, the company combined the proteins with so-called adjuvants made by British drugmaker GSK and the American company Dynavax. Clover’s formulation looks to be especially durable; the vaccine can sit out at room temperature for a month and remain viable. Investments from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness supported the development of manufacturing that could lead to the production of a billion doses a year. On June 30, 2021, Clover announced an agreement to provide 400 million doses to COVAX, the initiative to deliver vaccines to low- and middle-income countries. CEPI pledged an additional $36.9 million toward the development of the vaccine on Nov. 18.
Clover launched a Phase 1 trial in June 2020, and in December the company announced that the vaccine triggered a high level of antibodies. It registered a Phase 2/3 trial with the GSK adjuvant, but in February 2021 the company announced it was canceling the study. Instead, it moved forward with a trial with the Dynavax adjuvant. On Sept. 22, Clover announced that the trial showed their vaccine has an efficacy of 79 percent against disease from Delta variant, and a 100 percent efficacy against hospitalization. The results were published in the Lancet in January 2022. Clover continued to follow its trial volunteers and reported that five months after the second dose, the vaccine’s efficacy was little changed. On Aug. 25, 2022, the company announced that the vaccine produced twice as many antibodies in adolescents than in young adults, which may translate into a greater protection against the coronavirus.
In February 2022, Clover announced that in 2022 it plans to seek authorization from the World Health Organization, the European Medicines Agency, and other regulators to use their vaccine as a universal booster. The company reported that its booster produced three times the antibodies as an AstraZeneca booster. Later, on June 27, Clover said that the vaccine provided a boost of antibodies against the Omicron variant when used as a third dose in individuals who have already received two doses.
Clover has created several updated versions of its vaccine that may offer better protection against new variants of the coronavirus. On May 31, 2022, the company announced that one of these new vaccines had entered a Phase 1 trial.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Scientists at Jiangsu Rec-Biotechnology have developed a vaccine, called ReCOV, that is made of viral proteins that are grown in Chinese hamster ovary cells. They registered a Phase 1 trial in New Zealand on March 26, 2021. Preliminary results from the trial suggest that the vaccine was effective at generating immunity. On Sept. 29, Jiangsu announced that it would merge with Shenzhen Rhegen Biotechnology to become a new company called Wuhan Rhecogen Biotechnology. The company registered a Phase 2/3 trial in late 2021, and in January 2022 it announced that the trial had been approved to start in the Philippines. It received approval to expand the trial to the U.A.E. in April and to China in May.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Massachusetts-based Akston Biosciences has developed a vaccine that targets a part of the coronavirus spike protein called the receptor-binding domain. Researchers at Akston say that focusing on this section is an efficient way to boost immunity against new variants. They began a Phase 1/2 trial of their vaccine, known as AKS-452, on April 12. After positive results from the Phase 1 trial, Akston announced that it began dosing participants in its Phase 2 trial on Aug. 5. On Nov. 20, the company said that it had dosed the first 100 patients in another Phase 2 trial in India. Positive results from the trial, released on Dec. 22, suggested that the vaccine could produce a significant immune response without adverse reactions. They expanded the study into a Phase 2/3 trial with 1,500 volunteers in 2022, dosing the first participants in India on April 7, 2022. Results from the trial suggest that the vaccine could safely help produce antibodies against variants of concern.. Akston announced on March 17 that it had signed a licensing agreement with Biolexis to produce and market the vaccine across the world under the name AmbiVax-C.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
Researchers at Chinese company Yisheng Biopharma have combined their adjuvant technology with proteins grown from Chinese hamster ovary cells to build a vaccine that targets the coronavirus. Yisheng’s C.E.O. told the South China Morning Post that the vaccine only requires one week between doses. The company received clearance to begin a Phase 1 trial in the U.A.E. in July 2021. And in August, they registered a Phase 1 trial in New Zealand. The South China Morning Post also reported in September that the U.A.E. has authorized a trial for the vaccine to be used in those who are already infected with Covid-19 or have received other vaccines.
In July 2022, Yisheng registered a Phase 2/3 trial to start the following month.
Updated April 23, 2022
PHASE 2
EMERGENCY USE IN CUBA
Cuban researchers at Finlay Vaccine Institute have also developed a single-dose vaccine called Soberana Plus. Like its other candidates, Soberana Plus targets the part of the coronavirus known as the RBD and contains an adjuvant. But Finlay researchers are specifically tailoring this vaccine to people who have already had Covid-19 — a first of its kind. They say that such a strategy can help prevent reinfection and limit the spread of new variants. After positive results from a Phase 1 trial, Finlay received approval to begin a Phase 2 trial among Covid-19 survivors on April 9. Cuban regulators allowed Finlay to expand the trial to include children on Sept. 28. Researchers are also conducting the Phase 2 trial in Italy and plan to compare the results to those in Cuba. Results from that Phase 2 trial, released on June 9, 2022, showed that the vaccine significantly boosted the immunity that the participants already had.
Scientists have reported that combining two doses of Soberana 2 with one dose of Soberana Plus has yielded solid results in adults and in children.
On Aug. 20, 2021, the Cuban government announced the emergency authorization of both Soberana 2 and Soberana Plus. Reuters reported later that month that Cuba would begin importing Sinopharm vaccines to make up for their lagging vaccination campaign, combining it with a Soberana Plus booster. Cuban regulators gave emergency authorization for the use of Soberana Plus in Covid-19 survivors on Sept. 23. On Dec. 7, health officials expanded the authorization to include child survivors older than two.
On July 27, 2022, Belarus gave emergency use authorization to the vaccine, becoming the first country in Europe to do so.
Emergency use in: Belarus, Cuba, Nicaragua.
Updated July 29, 2022
Soberana Plus
vaccine
BELARUS
CUBA
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana Plus
vaccine
BELARUS
CUBA
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana Plus
vaccine
BELARUS
CUBA
NICARAGUA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Soberana Plus
vaccine
CUBA
NICARAGUA
BELARUS
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 2
A team of Turkish researchers at Middle East Technical University and Bilkent University have developed a vaccine that is made up of virus-like particles. Each particle carries four of the coronavirus proteins. On March 26, 2021, they registered a small Phase 1 trial sponsored by TUBITAK, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. The researchers registered a Phase 2 trial of the vaccine on July 15.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 2
Chinese researchers at Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology and Walvax Biotechnology have modified the structure of the coronavirus spike protein to better stimulate an immune response from their vaccine. They registered a Phase 1 trial for their prototype vaccine, called ZR-202-CoV, in China on July 29. On Aug. 4, they registered a Phase 2 trial. ZerunBio and Walvax announced on July 21 that they are also partnering with CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, to support the development of ZR-202-CoV and to create a variant vaccine using the same technology. CEPI expanded its partnership with the two companies on Feb. 8, 2022, to support another Phase 1/2 trial in Africa for a multi-variant vaccine.
The researchers started a Phase 1/2 trial for the vaccine in adults 60 and older on Jan. 18, 2022. On Aug. 5, another Phase 1/2 trial began, comparing ZR-202-CoV and a booster vaccine called ZR-202a-CoV to Comirnaty.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 2
As part of the European Union-funded PREVENT-nCoV consortium, a team of biotechnology companies and research laboratories developed a vaccine against Covid-19. It contains a coronavirus protein called nucleocapsid. The vaccine, called ABNCoV2, uses technology from consortium members AdaptVac and ExpreS2ion, among others. After promising preclinical results in primates, Bavarian Nordic launched a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine in the Netherlands. The first volunteers received doses of the vaccine on March 15, 2021. On Aug. 9, the researchers said that the trial showed ABNCoV2 produced high levels of antibodies without dangerous side effects.
Later that month, Bavarian Nordic launched Phase 2 trials of the vaccine, both as an initial protection against Covid-19 and as a booster for other vaccines. Positive results from the trial, released Dec. 5 and bolstered with more data on Feb. 28, 2022, suggest that the vaccine is effective as a booster. In June, Bavarian Nordic announced its upcoming Phase 3 trial would compare its vaccine as a booster against Pfizer-BioNTech’s Comirnaty vaccine. The trial will start in August 2022, and Bavarian Nordic anticipates gaining approval for the vaccine as early as 2023.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 2
In early 2020, researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany created a vaccine made of eight parts of two viral proteins, along with an immune-stimulating adjuvant. Most Covid-19 vaccines are designed to make the immune system produce strong antibodies. By contrast, the Tübingen team crafted their vaccine, called CoVac-1, to stimulate the production of T cells, which can attack infected cells. The researchers created CoVac-1 to help people with a deficiency in antibody-producing B cells. On Nov. 23, 2021, they published a paper in Nature demonstrating that their Phase 1 trial produced strong T cell responses that last for at least three months. The vaccine is currently in a Phase 2 trial. On April 13, 2022, Indian news outlet Financial Express reported that the researchers are preparing to move to Phase 3 trials. The researchers said in June that they are also looking for immunocompromised adults for a future study.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 2
In addition to their Abdala vaccine, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba announced on Nov. 26, 2020 that it was beginning a Phase 1 trial of a second vaccine, this one delivered as a nasal spray. Known as Mambisa, the vaccine contains a piece of the coronavirus spike protein called the receptor-binding domain, along with a protein from the hepatitis B virus that stimulates the immune system. The name refers to women who fought in Cuba’s nineteenth-century wars of independence. Mambisa is one of two Cuban vaccines tested in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial to assess their ability to increase immunity in those who have already had Covid-19. That trial moved to Phase 2 in November. After releasing promising results from the trial, the researchers announced in January 2022 that they would continue evaluating the vaccine in human trials. Cuban health authorities approved a trial for Mambisa as a booster dose on Nov. 20. Cuban news outlets reported on March 30 that the developers could apply for authorization for Mambisa’s use as a booster in the coming weeks.
Updated April 3, 2022
PHASE 2
Scientists at Thai startup Baiya Phytopharm have created a vaccine that uses plant-based technology to develop immunity. They registered a Phase 1 trial on July 7, 2021, and started the study in September. In November, the researchers said that Phase 2 trials were underway.
Baiya is also working on a second-generation version of its plant-based vaccine to address variants.In August 2022, the company announced Phase 1 results suggested the vaccine is safe.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 2
Vaccine name: COVAC
Efficacy: Unknown
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan has developed two vaccine candidates which use pieces of viral proteins to develop immunity against the coronavirus. VIDO registered a Phase 1 trial for COVAC-2 on Jan. 8, 2021. But as approved vaccines became easier to get in Canada, some volunteers began dropping out of the trial, Saskatoon’s CTV News reported. Still, on Sept. 15, VIDO director Volker Gerdts told Global News Morning that it was moving to a Phase 2 trial after getting promising preliminary results. He also said that VIDO is working with the Institut Pasteur in Senegal to market the vaccine in Africa. On Nov. 4, CEPI announced that it pledged $5 million to support the development of the vaccine. VIDO registered a Phase 2 trial for COVAC-2 in January 2022. VIDO registered another Phase 1 trial in Canada and Brazil for its other vaccine candidate, COVAC-1, on Dec. 14. Those trials should have begun in June 2022, according to what the researchers wrote in the trial record.
Updated July 23, 2022
PHASE 3
Chinese company Sinocelltech has developed two protein vaccines, called SCTV01C and SCTV01E, against the coronavirus. In February 2022, the researchers registered a series of Phase 2 booster studies to evaluate their ability to generate immunity in adults and adolescents who have already received other vaccines. The researchers registered a Phase 3 trial for SCTV01E on April 4.
Updated Feb. 16, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
On Aug. 18, 2020, the head of epidemiology at Cuba’s public health ministry announced the country’s first trial of a vaccine of Covid-19. The Finlay Vaccine Institute in Havana began testing a vaccine called Soberana 1. It contains a part of the spike protein, called RBD, along with two extra ingredients: proteins from a bacteria and aluminum hydroxide. These ingredients, known as adjuvants, boost the immune system’s response to the coronavirus RBD. On July 26, Cuban media outlets reported that Soberana 1 had entered Phase 2 trials. In November, Cuban health officials approved a clinical trial for the use of Soberana 1 as a booster dose. Results from the Phase 1 trial suggest that Soberana 1 could safely generate immunity, and, when combined with Abdala, could fight against the Omicron variant.
Updated Jan. 26, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
SpyBiotech, a company spun off from the University of Oxford, produced a vaccine from a mixture of proteins. Some of the proteins, from hepatitis B viruses, form hollow shells. The researchers decorated these shells with part of the coronavirus spike protein. The vaccine is relatively easy to manufacture because the proteins can be produced by fermenting yeast. Once purified, the proteins then self-assemble into shells.
Injected into monkeys the vaccine produced promising levels of immune responses. In September 2020, SpyBiotech announced that the first volunteers in an Australian Phase 1/2 trial were receiving their Covid-19 vaccine. The Serum Institute of India, which licensed the technology from SpyBiotech, is running the trials. But the trial record, which has not been updated since September 2020, shows that the researchers have only recruited nine volunteers of an expected 280.
Updated July 20, 2021
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
South Korean vaccine producer EuBiologics launched a Phase 1 of a protein-based vaccine in late January 2021. Known as EuCorVac-19, the vaccine combines the spike protein with an adjuvant that stimulates the immune system. EuBiologics announced on June 10, 2021, that it had successfully completed Phase 1. On Sept. 17, they finished administering the vaccine to Phase 2 volunteers and made plans for a Phase 3 trial in which they would compare it against the AstraZeneca vaccine, Vaxzevria. But the Korean Biomedical Review reported that AstraZeneca would not be supplying the vaccine, raising doubts about the trial’s prospects. Still, on Jan. 28, 2022, EuBiologics announced that it received approval from the South Korean government to proceed with Phase 3 trials.
Updated Feb. 7, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
The Massachusetts-based company VBI Vaccines developed a coronavirus vaccine that is based on hollow, virus-like protein shells. The company added pieces of coronavirus proteins to the shells, selected for their potential both to produce antibodies and to train T cells to attack infected cells. In February 2021, VBI registered a placebo-controlled Phase 1/2 trial in Canada on 780 volunteers, comparing the effects from using one or two doses. The vaccine, called VBI-2902a, uses aluminum phosphate as an adjuvant. On June 29, VBI released preliminary results from the trial, showing that volunteers produced high levels of antibodies without any serious side effects. VBI announced on Sept. 29 that it had dosed the first participants in another Phase 1 trial for a vaccine meant to protect against emerging variants. Results from these trials were encouraging, VBI said on April 5, 2022.
VBI Vaccines is also experimenting with vaccines that combine proteins from the three coronaviruses that cause severe disease in humans: Covid-19, SARS, and MERS. They are exploring the possibility that such a vaccine could someday protect against a wide swath of coronaviruses, including ones that have yet to spill over from animal hosts. VBI’s pan-coronavirus vaccine, called VBI-2901, is scheduled to enter clinical trials in the third quarter of 2022.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
EMERGENCY USE IN U.A.E.
Vaccine name: NVSI-06-07
Researchers at China’s Sinopharm have created a protein-based vaccine called NVSI-06-07 that uses a genetically engineered spike protein to help the body produce antibodies. Sinopharm’s two other vaccine candidates, one developed with the Beijing Institute and one developed with the Wuhan Institute, use inactivated coronaviruses to develop immunity. Sinopharm started a Phase 1/2 trial of NVSI-06-07 on April 24. The U.A.E. provided emergency use authorization for the vaccine as a booster dose in late December, Reuters reported. In January 2022, a team of scientists from China and the U.A.E. released a report showing that the booster produced a stronger dose of antibodies against the Omicron variant than a third dose of Sinopharm’s inactivated virus vaccine.
Emergency use in: United Arab Emirates.
Updated Jan. 12, 2022
Sinopharm
protein-based
vaccine
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm
protein-based
vaccine
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm
protein-based
vaccine
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm
protein-based
vaccine
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Russian researchers at the St. Petersburg Scientific Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera at the Federal Medical Biological Agency developed a protein subunit vaccine against the coronavirus. They launched a Phase 1/2 trial on the vaccine, known as Convacell, on July 19, 2021. Results from the preclinical trial suggest that the vaccine is safe and effective, Federal Medical Biological Agency leader Veronika Skvortsova said on Sept. 29. In April 2022, the institute announced that Convacell was going into production. TASS reported in June that the vaccine “may” go into Phase 3 trials in late summer 2022.
Updated July 29, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
The Human Stem Cells Institute, a private Russian biotechnology company, has developed a recombinant vaccine against the coronavirus called Betuvax-CoV-2. After receiving government approval in September 2021, the researchers began a Phase 1/2 trial.
Updated March 11, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Taiwan-based vaccine manufacturer Adimmune got permission to launch a Phase 1 trial on Aug. 20, 2020. The vaccine contains the RBD section of the virus’s spike protein. In December, the Taiwan press reported that Adimmune failed to find the right dose of their vaccine and needed to try a new formulation. Adimmune announced in February 2021 that it would shift vaccine research to target new variants. In September, the company received permission to launch a new Phase 1/2 trial.
Updated Jan. 3, 2022
PHASE 1 PHASE 2 COMBINED PHASES
Indonesian researchers at Airlangga University have developed a vaccine that uses a coronavirus protein to develop immunity. After positive preclinical results, Airlangga registered a Phase 1/2 trial on Feb. 7, 2022, comparing the vaccine with CoronaVac. The researchers moved to Phase 3 on Aug. 19.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
PHASE 1
A second plant-based vaccine is in development at KBio. Like Medicago, KBio engineers a wild relative of tobacco called Nicotiana benthamiana to make viral proteins. The company previously used this technique to make a drug called Zmapp for Ebola. A Phase 1 trial launched in December 2020. British American Tobacco announced on Jan. 10, 2022, that it would peel off its vaccine subsidiary, formerly called Kentucky BioProcessing, into a new company called KBio. Well over a year after the start of the Phase 1 trial, the results have yet to be made public.
Updated April 3, 2022
PHASE 1
Scientists at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research have designed a vaccine from a nanoparticle decorated with the coronavirus’s spike protein. Experiments on monkeys showed that the two-dose vaccine delivered extremely high levels of antibodies. On April 5, 2021, the army launched a Phase 1 trial. The vaccine designers hope to create a new version of the vaccine with proteins from other coronaviruses to offer protection that extends beyond Covid-19. In December, DefenseOne reported that the researchers had completed the Phase 1 trial.
Updated Dec. 22, 2021
PHASE 1
Researchers at Pennsylvania-based VaxForm have created a vaccine that can be taken by mouth as a liquid. The scientists say that their candidate, called CoV2-OGEN1, has an advantage over injected vaccines because it’s stable at room temperature and it doesn’t require a medical professional to be administered. Syneos Health and US Specialty Formulations registered a Phase 1 trial in New Zealand on May 19, 2021.
In December, USSF reported that the trial showed the vaccine was safe and triggered a strong immune response in all the volunteers. Plans are now underway for a Phase 2/3 trial, USSF C.E.O. Kyle Flanigan said on April 18, 2022.
Updated April 21, 2022
PHASE 1
Israel-based Oravax Medical, a subsidiary of Oramed Pharmaceuticals, developed a Covid-19 vaccine pill. The vaccine contains virus-like particles that are studded with three proteins from the coronavirus. Oravax Medical began work on the vaccine in March 2021, finding promising antibody responses from animals. On Oct. 29, 2021, the company announced it had won approval from the South African government to start a Phase 1 trial. Oravax Medical has also applied to Israel to run another trial there. Oravax dosed its first volunteer in South Africa on Dec. 14. On Dec. 29, Oravax agreed to supply Vietnamese company Tan Thanh Holdings with at least 10 million doses of its vaccine for marketing and distribution across Southeast Asia. In a message to shareholders on Jan. 12, 2022, Oramed said it expected to launch Phase 2/3 trials in the second half of the year.
Updated July 18, 2022
PHASE 1
The British company Emergex Vaccines has created a vaccine that contains gold nanoparticles carrying pieces of coronavirus proteins, called peptides. Emergex hopes to use the vaccine to prime the immune system to attack infected cells without relying on antibodies. The researchers registered a Phase 1 trial in Switzerland on Nov. 9, and began dosing participants in January 2022. Emergex said it is administering the vaccine through arm patches created by Nanopass and Zosano.
Updated June 13, 2022
PHASE 1
Seoul-based biotechnology company HK inno.N has developed a recombinant protein vaccine against the coronavirus. After positive results from preclinical trials in primates, the company began a Phase 1 trial on Sept. 16, 2021.
Updated Nov. 10, 2021
PHASE 1
Researchers at the Hong Kong biotechnology company DreamTec Limited have made a Covid-19 vaccine by adding genes to harmless bacteria spores. Volunteers in a Phase 1 clinical trial that began in Hong Kong on Nov. 28, 2021 swallow a pill containing the spores. Once the pill reaches the gut, the spores start to grow and produce parts of coronavirus proteins.
Updated Dec. 28, 2021
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: LYB001
Dose: 3 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
The Chinese biotechnology company Yantai Patronus, a subsidiary of Luye Life Sciences Group, has created a vaccine that houses pieces of the coronavirus in a virus-like shell. The researchers registered a Phase 1 trial on Nov. 18, 2021. They also registered a Phase 2/3 trial, but have not yet begun recruiting volunteers.
Updated June 3, 2022
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: DoCo-Pro-RBD-1
Type: Muscle injection
Australian researchers at the University of Melbourne are testing a vaccine that uses a protein similar to a section of a coronavirus protein called the receptor binding domain. They registered a Phase 1 trial on March 9, 2022. The researchers plan to test their candidate in individuals who have already received two full doses and a booster of widely used vaccines. The university is also testing an mRNA vaccine.
Updated March 11, 2022
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: ACM-001
Type: Intranasal spray
ACM Biolabs, a Singapore-based biotechnology company, created a vaccine for Covid-19 called ACM-001. It contains spike proteins along with an immunity-boosting adjuvant. ACM-001 can be delivered as an intranasal spray. In March 2022, the company announced that studies on hamsters indicated the vaccine produced strong immunity against a range of variants. ACB Biolabs followed up on those results with a Phase 1 trial of ACM-001 as a booster. The company announced they dosed their first volunteer on July 29, 2022.
Updated July 29, 2022
ABANDONED
In spring 2021, researchers at the University of Washington developed a nanoparticle vaccine for Covid-19. Each nanoparticle carries numerous copies of a protein fragment called RBD, from the spike protein of the coronavirus. Seattle-based Icosavax purchased a license to test and market the vaccine, called IVX-411. On June 8, the company announced that it had begun a Phase 1/2 trial in Australia. In the trial, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, some of the volunteers received the vaccine along with an adjuvant from Seqirus. Icosavax is also giving IVX-411 to people who are already vaccinated and observing how it works as a booster.
On March 25, 2022, Icosavax announced that its Phase 1/2 trial was a disappointment. The vaccine did not deliver a stronger immune response than natural infection. On July 28, Icosovax reported that the protein fragment turned out to be unstable. The company said it would turn its efforts to making a new vaccine with two different protein fragments.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
ABANDONED
Researchers at Zhongyianke Biotech, Liaoning Maokangyuan Biotech and the Academy of Military Medical Sciences are using Chinese hamster ovary cells to help create immunity in humans. They registered a Phase 1 trial in China in November 2020. On March 24, 2021, they advanced the vaccine to Phase 2. The researchers registered a Phase 3 trial on Sept. 5, 2021, but the registry was later removed.
Updated April 29, 2022
ABANDONED
On April 1, 2021, French researchers at OSE Immunotherapeutics announced they had received approval to launch a Phase 1 trial of a vaccine, called CoVepiT, in Belgium. Their vaccine can teach the body to develop an immune response against 11 different proteins of the coronavirus. The researchers picked these proteins because they have a low chance of mutating — a feature, they say, that makes the vaccine “variant-proof.” They began dosing participants on May 26. But on July 19, OSE announced that it would voluntarily pause its trial after receiving preliminary news of adverse reactions to the vaccine. In October, the company said the trial was still paused. OSE said on Nov. 30 that early results from the trial show that the vaccine was effective at generating an immune response.
In March 2022, OSE said that pursuing further development of CoVepiT would be “difficult,” as other therapeutics and vaccines have already proven successful in patients. The company now plans to use its vaccine platform for future pandemics.
Updated April 8, 2022
ABANDONED
Kazakhstani scientists at the Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems developed a second vaccine against Covid-19, called QazCoVac-P. Unlike their first vaccine, which is made from inactivated coronaviruses, QazCoVac-P uses proteins from the virus to boost immunity. Kazakhstani researchers commenced a Phase 1/2 trial of the vaccine on June 15, 2021. But the trial record, which indicated the study would conclude in December 2021, has not been updated since July 2021. As of February 2022, there was no evidence of QazCoVac-P in use in Kazakhstan. And on April 28, Kazakhstani health officials said that production of more vaccines would not be necessary, since there were enough QazVac doses to cover the population.
Updated April 29, 2022
ABANDONED
SK Bioscience, a South Korean vaccine maker, won approval on Nov. 23, 2020 from the country’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety for a vaccine called NBP2001. The vaccine contained fragments of the spike protein. In a Phase 1 trial, researchers tested the vaccine on 50 volunteers. In the trial’s registry, it was scheduled to end in April 2021. On SK BioScience’s website, the company says that the trial is complete, without the launch of a Phase 2 trial to carry the research further. Meanwhile, SK Bioscience is actively pushing another vaccine, called GBP510, through a Phase 3 trial.
Updated Feb. 23, 2022
ABANDONED
On Dec. 10, 2020, a vaccine from Australia’s University of Queensland was the first to be abandoned after entering a clinical trial. Cancelling the vaccine meant the collapse of a $1 billion deal with the Australian government for 51 million doses.
The vaccine studies offered great promise at first. Experiments on hamsters showed that the vaccine protected them from the coronavirus. The university launched a Phase 1 trial in July, combining coronavirus spike proteins with an adjuvant made by CSL. The trial delivered encouraging results: volunteers produced a high level of antibodies with no evidence of harmful side effects.
But then the researchers made an unwelcome discovery: some volunteers were getting positive tests for HIV, even though they were not actually infected with that virus. In a report released in February 2021, the researchers explained the false positives came about due to the way the researchers designed the vaccine.
To ensure that spike proteins can stimulate a strong immune response, the researchers had to prevent the molecules from unfolding and changing their shape. The researchers held the proteins in place with a molecular clamp, which was based on a segment of an HIV protein.
HIV tests use antibodies to probe for the presence of the virus’s proteins in people’s blood. The researchers thought that the antibodies would not grab the clamp. That assumption turned out to be wrong. Worried that false positive HIV test results would fuel hesitancy over getting Covid-19 vaccines, the Australian government decided to halt the trial.
“It will no longer feature in Australia’s vaccine plan,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison at a press conference to announce the cancellation.
But Queensland researchers have still found promise in their vaccine platform. In April 2021, they published the full results from their abandoned Phase 1 trial, which suggested that the candidate could still be effective against Covid-19. The researchers are now working to re-engineer their vaccine with different proteins that will not generate false positives for HIV. They have yet to provide a timeline for the development of an updated vaccine.
Updated May 18, 2021
Inactivated or Attenuated Coronavirus Vaccines
Vaccines created from weakened coronaviruses or coronaviruses that have been killed with chemicals.
Inactivated
virus
Inactivated
virus
Inactivated
virus
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CHINA, BAHRAIN
EMERGENCY USE IN MANY COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: BBIBP-CorV
Efficacy: 78.1%
Dose: 2 doses, 3 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
BBIBP-CorV, a vaccine made by the Beijing Institute of Biological Products and the state-owned Chinese company Sinopharm, has emerged as China’s leading Covid-19 vaccine, both within the country and abroad. In September 2021, the head of the company said in an interview with China Daily that Sinopharm had reached an annual production capacity of 7 billion doses.
On Dec. 30, Sinopharm announced that the vaccine had an efficacy of 79.34 percent, leading the Chinese government to give it approval. On May 7, 2021, the World Health Organization put forward a similar efficacy estimate of 78.1 percent and gave the vaccine emergency use authorization. On Aug. 3, Bloomberg reported that results from a Hungarian study showed that the vaccine failed to produce enough antibodies in more than one quarter of elderly people. Results from a Peru trial suggest that the vaccine was 50.4 percent effective in preventing infections among healthcare workers, Reuters reported on Aug. 13.
After the vaccine was authorized in the United Arab Emirates, researchers there kept track of people who received the vaccine. In June 2022, they published a study showing that Sinopharm’s vaccine had an effectiveness of 79.6 percent against hospitalization and 84 percent against death. The effectiveness waned six months after vaccination.
The vaccine received approval for emergency use in children and adolescents in China on July 20. The U.A.E. approved the vaccine for use in those aged three and over on Aug. 2.
In May 2021, concerns over the vaccine’s effectiveness emerged in the U.A.E. In response, the government announced that it would provide booster shots to those who have received two doses of BBIBP-CorV. Bahrain followed with a similar announcement on June 3. On Aug. 29, the U.A.E. mandated booster shots for all residents who received BBIBP-CorV. A representative from Sinopharm reported at a W.H.O. meeting in October that a booster tripled antibody levels over their peak after two doses.
For more details, see How the Sinopharm Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: Bahrain, China.
Emergency use in: Algeria, Angola, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Brazil, Brunei, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Côte d'Ivoire, Cuba, Dominica, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Guinea, Guyana, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Macao, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines (including Hayat-Vax), Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tanzania, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam (including Hayat-Vax), Venezuela, West Bank and Gaza Strip, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Limited use in: Serbia, Seychelles.
Updated June 13, 2022
Sinopharm and
Beijing Institute
vaccine
NIGER
CHINA
IRAN
EGYPT
PAKISTAN
BAHRAIN
GABON
MEXICO
BRAZIL
NAMIBIA
INDONESIA
PERU
SEYCHELLES
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Beijing Institute
vaccine
CHINA
IRAN
EGYPT
PAKISTAN
BAHRAIN
GABON
MEXICO
BRAZIL
NAMIBIA
INDONESIA
PERU
SEYCHELLES
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Beijing Inst.
vaccine
CHINA
EGYPT
IRAN
BAHRAIN
PAKISTAN
GABON
MEXICO
BRAZIL
NAMIBIA
INDONESIA
PERU
SEYCHELLES
ARGENTINA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Beijing Inst.
vaccine
MEXICO
BRAZIL
PERU
ARGENTINA
HUNGARY
CHINA
IRAN
EGYPT
PAKISTAN
BAHRAIN
ANGOLA
INDONESIA
SEYCHELLES
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CHINA
EMERGENCY USE IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: CoronaVac (formerly PiCoVacc)
Efficacy: 50.65% in Brazil trial, 83.5% in Turkey trial
Dose: 2 doses, 2 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Refrigerated
Coronavac, developed by the private Chinese company Sinovac, has emerged as one of China’s leading vaccines. As of April 2022, the company said that it had delivered over 2.8 billion doses around the world. But concerns have arisen about its effectiveness and how long its protection lasts.
The trials in Brazil and Turkey demonstrated that it could protect against Covid-19, but they delivered strikingly different results — in part because they designed the trials differently. In Brazil, the efficacy against Covid-19 with or without symptoms was 50 percent. Against severe disease, its efficacy was 100 percent. The Turkish trial found that the efficacy against Covid-19 with at least one symptom was 83.5 percent.
After CoronaVac was taken up in other countries, some of them conducted studies to measure its effectiveness. In Chile, researchers reviewed 10.5 million people who were vaccinated and estimated that the vaccine had an effectiveness of 67 percent against symptomatic Covid-19, and 85 percent protection against hospitalization.
Sinovac registered a Phase 2 trial of the vaccine in children and adolescents on May 13. They moved to Phase 3 on Aug. 5. Preliminary results released on Nov. 5, suggest that the vaccine demonstrated no serious adverse reactions, and that it was effective at stimulating the immune system.
On April 26, 2022, Sinovac announced that they had received approval to test a new version of Sinovac tailored for the Omicron variant.
Indonesia gave the vaccine emergency authorization on Jan. 11, and two days later the president of Indonesia received an injection of CoronaVac on live television. Turkey authorized the vaccine on Jan. 13, and its president got vaccinated the next day. Brazil authorized CoronaVac on Jan. 17.
On Feb. 6, 2021, Sinovac announced that China had given CoronaVac conditional approval. China expanded its authorization to include children and adolescents on June 4. Both authorizations came before Phase 3 data was made public. After reviewing clinical trial results, the World Health Organization gave emergency authorization to the vaccine on June 1, 2021.
On May 4, the European Medicines Agency said it was launching a rolling review of CoronaVac, which will accelerate Sinovac’s marketing authorization if the company decides to apply for one. On April 14, 2022, Sinovac announced that health officials in Hong Kong have authorized the use of an Omicron-specific version of CoronaVac. China followed with an authorization two weeks later. Sinovac was authorized in Hong Kong for children as young as six months old on Aug. 2.
Some of the earliest evidence that boosters might be needed came in the spring of 2021, when more than 350 doctors and health care workers in Indonesia came down with Covid-19 despite being fully vaccinated with Sinovac. These alarming reports stirred concerns that CoronaVac’s protection was waning. In its June 2021 authorization of the vaccine, the World Health Organization noted that they observed possible signs of waning immunity in the first three months of the clinical trial in Brazil. A study released on July 25 found that six months after receiving two doses, healthy adults experienced a large drop in antibody levels.That same study showed that a booster of CoronaVac could restore high antibody levels.
In August, Chilean researchers registered a Phase 2 trial to assess the effectiveness of giving a different vaccine as a booster to those who received the Sinovac shot. CoronaVac is also part of a mixed-vaccine trial with Inovio’s vaccine. Results from a Chinese study, released on Sept. 7, suggested that getting a CanSino booster shot after the Sinovac vaccine produced a stronger antibody response compared to a third shot of the Sinovac vaccine.
For more details, see How the Sinovac Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: China.
Stopped use in: Malaysia.
Emergency use in: Albania, Algeria, Argentina, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, Colombia, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Egypt, Gabon, Georgia, Guinea, Guyana, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos, Libya, Malawi, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Morocco, Myanmar, Nepal, North Macedonia, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Syria, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Vietnam, West Bank, Zimbabwe. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Updated Aug. 6, 2022
Sinovac vaccine
UKRAINE
ALGERIA
TURKEY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
MALAYSIA
BRAZIL
BOTSWANA
INDONESIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinovac vaccine
UKRAINE
ALGERIA
TURKEY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
MALAYSIA
BRAZIL
COLOMBIA
BOTSWANA
INDONESIA
ARGENTINA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinovac vaccine
UKRAINE
ALGERIA
TURKEY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MEXICO
MALAYSIA
BRAZIL
COLOMBIA
INDONESIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
CHILE
Approved
Stopped use
in favor of other
vaccines
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinovac vaccine
MEXICO
BRAZIL
COLOMBIA
ARGENTINA
CHILE
UKRAINE
ALGERIA
TURKEY
CHINA
PAKISTAN
MALAYSIA
INDONESIA
SOUTH
AFRICA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Stopped use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN CHINA
LIMITED USE IN U.A.E.
Efficacy: 72.8%
Along with their Beijing Institute vaccine, Sinopharm also tested an inactivated virus vaccine developed by the Wuhan Institute of Biological Products. The Phase 1/2 trial, conducted in the spring of 2020, showed that the vaccine produced antibodies in volunteers, some of whom experienced fevers and other side effects. Sinopharm then launched a global Phase 3 trial of the Wuhan vaccine. In December 2020, Peru briefly paused their trial to investigate neurological problems that one volunteer experienced, but determined that it had nothing to do with the vaccines. On Feb. 25, 2021 China announced the approval of the Wuhan vaccine for general use. In May, the vaccine researchers published the results of the Phase 3 trial, demonstrating that the vaccine has an efficacy of 72.8 percent. The researchers are also comparing a version of the vaccine to the Beijing Institute vaccine in a Phase 3 booster trial against the Omicron variant.
Approved for use in: China.
Limited use in: United Arab Emirates.
Updated June 29, 2022
Sinopharm and
Wuhan Institute
vaccine
CHINA
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Wuhan Inst.
vaccine
CHINA
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Wuhan Inst.
vaccine
CHINA
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Sinopharm and
Wuhan Inst.
vaccine
CHINA
U.A.E.
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
APPROVED IN INDIA
EMERGENCY USE IN OTHER COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: Covaxin (also known as BBV152)
Efficacy: 77.8%
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Storage: At least a week at room temperature
Covaxin, produced by Bharat Biotech, was the first vaccine for Covid-19 developed in India to gain emergency use authorization. India approved it in April 2021, and the World Health Organization gave it emergency use listing on Nov. 3. As of February 2022, Bharat Biotech had distributed 200 million doses.
Bharat Biotech only began releasing results from the trial in March 2021, two months after the vaccine gained emergency authorization. The final results were posted online on July 2 and appeared in the Lancet on Nov. 11. The vaccine had an efficacy of 77.8 percent against symptomatic Covid-19, and its efficacy against severe Covid-19 was 93.4 percent. For asymptomatic disease, the vaccine had an efficacy of 63.6 percent, indicating that it can also slow transmission.
In June, Bharat Biotech registered a trial on children as young as 2. Results from that trial suggested that Covaxin was more effective in children than in adults.
Other countries in Africa, Asia, and South America later authorized the vaccine. In Brazil, a controversy over corruption led the government to suspend its authorization of Covaxin in July 2021. On Nov. 3, 2021, Covaxin became the first Indian vaccine to receive emergency use authorization from the World Health Organization.
In June 2021, Bharat Biotech set out to bring Covaxin to the United States. It formed a partnership with Pennsylvania-based Ocugen to seek a full approval for the vaccine, rather than an emergency use authorization. Ocugen and Bharat have suffered a series of setbacks in their efforts. The F.D.A. has twice put their U.S. trial on hold. The latest pause, announced on April 12, came after the World Health Organization raised concerns about Covaxin’s manufacturing. In May 2022, the F.D.A. allowed Ocugen to resume its trial.
For more details, see How Bharat Biotech’s Vaccine Works.
Approved for use in: India.
Stopped use in: Brazil suspended import.
Emergency use in: Bahrain, Botswana, Guatemala, Guyana, Hong Kong, Iran, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Nepal, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, Trinidad and Tobago, Venezuela, Vietnam, Zimbabwe. Emergency use validation from the World Health Organization.
Updated June 29, 2022
Bharat Biotech’s
Covaxin vaccine
PHILIPPINES
NEPAL
IRAN
INDIA
MEXICO
BRAZIL
ZIMBABWE
PARAGUAY
Suspended
import
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Bharat Biotech’s
Covaxin vaccine
PHILIPPINES
NEPAL
IRAN
INDIA
MEXICO
BRAZIL
ZIMBABWE
PARAGUAY
Approved
Suspended
import
Early, limited or
emergency use
Bharat Biotech’s
Covaxin
vaccine
PHILIPPINES
NEPAL
IRAN
MEXICO
INDIA
BRAZIL
ZIMBABWE
PARAGUAY
Suspended
import
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Bharat Biotech’s
Covaxin vaccine
MEXICO
BRAZIL
PARAGUAY
PHILIPPINES
NEPAL
IRAN
INDIA
ZIMBABWE
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Suspended import
PHASE 3
EARLY USE IN TWO COUNTRIES
Vaccine name: QazVac
Efficacy: 82%
The central Asian nation of Kazakhstan began research on a vaccine made from inactivated coronaviruses in the summer of 2020. On August 28, 2020, their Research Institute for Biological Safety Problems registered a Phase 1 trial on the vaccine. On Dec. 19, Kazinform reported that researchers had completed the Phase 2 trial, finding that the vaccine was safe and produced a promising immune response. The researchers commenced a Phase 3 trial in March 2021. Kazakhstan’s vice minister of education and science announced that the vaccine, known as QazVac, was expected to be authorized in April, despite the lack of published results from the Phase 3 trial.
Kazakhstan began administering its vaccine to the public in late April. On July 29, 2021, government officials announced that they would deliver 25,000 doses of the vaccine to neighboring country Kyrgyzstan.
Researchers at the institute released a report on their Phase 3 trial in Jan. 2022. They found that the vaccine had an efficacy of 82 percent against infection. The trial was too small to determine efficacy against severe disease. After the vaccine was authorized in Kazakhstan, researchers tracked the vaccine’s performance from February to September 2021. In April 2022, they reported that QazVac was 78 percent effective at preventing infection. Kazakhstani health officials said on April 28 that producing more doses of the vaccine would no longer be necessary, since there are already enough to cover the population.
Early use in: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan.
Updated April 29, 2022
QazVac vaccine
KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
QazVac vaccine
KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
QazVac vaccine
KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
QazVac vaccine
KAZAKHSTAN
KYRGYZSTAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN CHINA, INDONESIA
Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products is a Chinese company that makes vaccines for diseases such as hepatitis B and measles. In August 2020, AstraZeneca reached an agreement with Shenzhen to supply China with their adenovirus vaccine, despite the reports of corruption and scandals that have plagued the company.
In October Shenzhen Kangtai launched a Phase 1 trial on 180 volunteers of its own vaccine, based on inactivated coronaviruses, now known as KCONECAVAC. In February 2021 the company ran a Phase 2 trial, followed by a Phase 3 trial launched in May. The first volunteers in the trial received injections on June 21 in Malaysia.
In May 2021, the company also announced that the Chinese government had given it emergency use approval, even before the start of the Phase 3 trial. In November 2021, Indonesia authorized the Kangtai vaccine, and the company said it was shipping 4 million doses there — despite the lack of public Phase 3 trial results.
Emergency use in: China, Indonesia.
Updated June 3, 2022
Shenzhen Kangtai
vaccine
CHINA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shenzhen Kangtai
vaccine
CHINA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shenzhen
Kangtai
vaccine
CHINA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shenzhen
Kangtai
vaccine
CHINA
INDONESIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN IRAN
Shafa Pharmed Pars, an Iranian pharmaceutical company, developed a vaccine made of inactivated coronaviruses. Results from preclinical trials showed that the vaccine was safe and effective in animals. Known as COVIran Barekat, it entered a Phase 1 trial at the end of December, becoming the first vaccine developed in Iran to go into clinical testing. The results of the Phase 1 and 2 trials were published in April 2022.
COVIran Barekat began a Phase 3 trial on April 25, 2021, and on June 14, the Iranian government announced it had authorized the vaccine, despite the fact that many volunteers in the Phase 3 trial had not yet received their second dose. On June 25, Ayatollah Khamenei received the COVIran Barekat vaccine on television.
According to Iranian news reports, a study comparing COVIran Barekat as a booster with other vaccines found that the Iranian vaccine is roughly 87-percent effective at preventing death. The researchers are also producing a modified version of COVIran Barekat to address the Omicron variant after reportedly positive results in animal tests. That version, called COVIran Plus, began human trials on March 2, 2022. Iranian officials are also sending doses of COVIran Barekat to Nicaragua.
Emergency use in: Iran.
Updated June 13, 2022
Shafa Pharmed Pars
vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shafa Pharmed Pars
vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shafa Pharmed
Pars vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Shafa Pharmed Pars
vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
Researchers at the Institute of Medical Biology at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, which has invented vaccines for polio and hepatitis A, created an inactivated coronavirus vaccine. In May 2020, they launched a Phase 1 trial on 192 volunteers which indicated the vaccine was safe and produced an immune response. A Phase 2 trial followed on 750 volunteers, which led the researchers to select a two-week spacing between the two doses of the vaccine. In December the researchers launched a Phase 3 trial on up to 34,020 volunteers in Brazil and Malaysia. On June 9, 2021, Chinese government newspaper Science and Technology Daily reported that the vaccine received emergency use authorization.
Updated June 10, 2021
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN BAHRAIN, E.U., U.K.
Vaccine name: VLA2001
Efficacy: Produces 40 percent higher antibodies than Vaxzevria from AstraZeneca.
Dose: 2 doses, 4 weeks apart
Type: Muscle injection
Storage: Refrigerated at 2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius
The French vaccine maker Valneva created a vaccine from chemically inactivated coronaviruses, using an adjuvant from Dynavax. The vaccine, called VLA2001, received emergency authorization in Bahrain in March 2022, followed by the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, and the World Health Organization. It thus became the first inactivated-virus Covid vaccine developed outside of Asia to win authorization.
Research on VLA2001 began in 2020, and on Dec. 16, 2020 Valneva launched a Phase 1/2 trial in the United Kingdom. In April 2021, the company announced that the trial had delivered positive results and launched a Phase 3 trial on 4,000 volunteers in the United Kingdom. The trial was different from the first wave of studies on Covid-19 vaccines, in which some volunteers got a vaccine and the others received a placebo. With a growing number of vaccines authorized for use in Britain, such randomized clinical trials were no longer ethical. Instead, Valneva gave VLA2001 to half of their volunteers, while the others received Vaxzevria, the vaccine made by AstraZeneca. Researchers then observed whether VLA2001 produced similar levels of antibodies to Vaxzevria.
On Oct. 18, 2021, Valneva announced the top-line results of the trial. Compared to Vaxzevria, their VLA2001 vaccine produced 40 percent higher levels of antibodies that neutralized the coronavirus. It also produced fewer side effects.
Early in Valneva’s clinical trials, the British government agreed in February 2021 to purchase 100 million doses of the vaccine should it prove safe and effective, with an option to acquire a further 90 million — a deal potentially worth over $1 billion. But the deal collapsed in September, when the United Kingdom claimed the company was in breach of its obligations, an accusation Valneva denied. The cancellation of the deal raises questions about the United Kingdom’s subsequent conditional approval of the vaccine seven months later. It’s not clear how available VLA2001 will be in the country. In the announcement of the conditional approval, Valneva’s president suggested the British people who were not comfortable with newer vaccine technologies might prefer VLA2001’s traditional design.
Despite Valneva’s troubles in the United Kingdom, the company moved ahead with other negotiations with Bahrain as well as with the European Medicines Agency. But on April 25, Valneva said that the E.M.A. had more questions about the vaccine, pushing a potential authorization to later in 2022. As the deliberations dragged on, the European Commission canceled its advance purchase order for 60 million doses of VLA2001 in May 2022. In June 2022, the European Commission authorized the vaccine. On July 20, the European Commission agreed to purchase 1.25 million doses, a tiny fraction of the order it had originally promised.
After missing the initial wave of vaccine authorizations, Valneva positioned VLA2001 as a booster for other vaccines. Results from the United Kingdom’s COV-Boost trial, which compared the effectiveness of seven vaccines head-to-head as boosters for those who have received two doses of Comirnaty or Vaxzevria, showed that Valneva’s vaccine performed the least well at generating an immune response. In a Dec. 3 statement, Valneva said the short interval between the second dose and the booster shot during the trial could be to blame for the disappointing results.
In its own booster trial, Valneva said that administering the vaccine seven to eight months after two doses of VLA2001 significantly increased immunity. In May 2022, Valneva launched another booster trial, giving VLA2001 to people who had previously received mRNA vaccines.
In a May 2022 earnings call, the company said it was intending to apply to the F.D.A. in the second half of the year. It would apply for a standard approval, rather than an emergency authorization, which would take longer for the agency to review.
Emergency use in: Bahrain, European Union, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, United Kingdom, World Health Organization.
Updated Aug. 26, 2022
Valneva
vaccine
BRITAIN
BAHRAIN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Valneva
vaccine
BRITAIN
BAHRAIN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Valneva
vaccine
BRITAIN
BAHRAIN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Valneva
vaccine
BRITAIN
BAHRAIN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EMERGENCY USE IN TURKEY
Vaccine name: Turkovac
On Nov. 5, Turkey’s Erciyes University announced they had begun injecting volunteers with an inactivated coronavirus vaccine initially called ERUCOV-VAC. It was the first clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine developed in Turkey. On Dec. 14, 2020, the president of the university said that the Phase 1 trial was complete. Sabah Today reported the following month that Phase 2 trials had begun. On June 23, 2021, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced that the vaccine, renamed Turkovac, has entered a Phase 3 trial. In July, the researchers registered a Phase 2 trial to evaluate the vaccine as a booster shot, moving on to a Phase 3 trial on Oct. 14. Turkovac is also being assessed in a booster trial for individuals who received an mRNA vaccine. Researchers registered another booster trial on Jan. 27, 2022, in which Turkovac will be used in participants who received Comirnaty. They also registered a trial on Feb. 9, comparing the vaccine’s effectiveness in adolescents against CoronaVac.
On Dec. 23, 2021, Turkey announced that it was granting emergency use authorization to Turkovac. Appointments for the shot opened on Dec. 30, and Turkey began giving Turkovac as a booster in January 2022.
When Turkovac rolled out, Turkish medical associations requested that the government make the results of the Phase 3 trial public. It is not yet known how safe and effective Turkovac is, but the leader of its development claimed in a conference on Jan. 25, 2022, that it can protect against the Alpha and Delta variants.
Emergency use in: Turkey.
Updated Feb. 9, 2022
Turkovac
vaccine
TURKEY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Turkovac
vaccine
TURKEY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Turkovac
vaccine
TURKEY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Turkovac
vaccine
TURKEY
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 3
EARLY USE IN RUSSIA
The Chumakov Center at the Russian Academy of Sciences developed an inactivated coronavirus vaccine called CoviVac. On Oct. 14, 2020, Tass reported that clinical trials of the vaccine would begin in Kirov and St. Petersburg on Oct. 19. On Feb. 20, 2021, Russia approved the vaccine for domestic use, despite the fact that the Chumakov Center only later began a Phase 3 trial. Belarus and Cambodia also gave emergency authorization to CoviVac.
On June 3, 2021, the director of the Chumakov Center said the trial was still underway and it was not yet possible to speak of the vaccine’s efficacy. He later said that the Chumakov Center could produce 20 million doses in 2022. The director told Tass in October that a trial for adults aged 60 and older could begin soon. Chumakov received approval to begin Phase 3 trials in children on Feb. 7, 2022.
Despite being in widespread use since early 2021, there is still little scientific information about CoviVac. In February 2022, Chumakov researchers reported results of the Phase 1 / 2 trial. While volunteers produced antibodies against the coronavirus, the trial was too small to determine the efficacy of CoviVac against Covid-19.
In June 2022, the Chumakov Center created an entry for the Phase 3 trial of CoviVac on a registry maintained by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. They indicated that the trial had begun in July 2021, and would be finished by the end of 2022.
Early use in: Belarus, Cambodia, Russia.
Updated June 13, 2022
Chumakov Center
vaccine
RUSSIA
BELARUS
CAMBODIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Chumakov Center
vaccine
RUSSIA
BELARUS
CAMBODIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Chumakov Center
vaccine
RUSSIA
BELARUS
CAMBODIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Chumakov Center
vaccine
RUSSIA
BELARUS
CAMBODIA
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
PHASE 2 PHASE 3 COMBINED PHASES
On March 22, 2021, Japan’s KM Biologics launched a Phase 1/2 trial of its inactivated vaccine candidate, called KD-414. Seven months later, the company registered a Phase 2/3 trial in Japan for its vaccine on Oct. 22. In December, KM Biologics began testing the vaccine as a booster. The company registered a Phase 3 trial in March 2022 to compare KD-414 to Vaxzevria.
Updated June 29, 2022
PHASE 2
New York-based Codagenix develops vaccines based on live attenuated viruses, but with a twist: they create the viruses from scratch. The Codagenix researchers begin by rewriting the genomes of the viruses they want to protect against, introducing hundreds of extra mutations that dramatically slow down the virus’s growth in infected cells. The researchers then produce the weakened viruses and package them in a nasal spray.
In 2020, Codagenix developed a vaccine for Covid-19 called CoviLiv. After successful experiments in animals, a Phase 1 trial was launched in the United Kingdom in January 2021.
In March 2022, Codagenix announced that people who received CoviLiv produced a strong response from antibodies in the nose, which appears to block the spread of the virus. They also found that CoviLiv produced T cells that attack infected cells. Their studies suggest that these T cells will be able to fight different variants of the coronavirus.
In May 2022, the World Health Organization announced that they were testing CoviLiv in a Phase 2 trial, as part of their Solidarity Trial. In the same month, Codagenix launched a Phase 1 trial to test CoviLiv as a booster.
Updated July 23, 2022
PHASE 1
Turkish researchers at Koçak Farma have developed a vaccine made of inactivated coronaviruses. They began a Phase 1 trial on April 8, 2021. The trial record indicates that the study was expected to end on Oct. 20, 2021, but no updates have since been recorded.
Updated March 11, 2022
PHASE 1
Egypt’s National Research Centre has developed an inactivated coronavirus vaccine called Covi Vax. The researchers registered a Phase 1 trial on Nov. 22, 2021, in which they plan to test the vaccine’s effectiveness at different doses. But no updates have since been recorded.
Updated Aug. 31, 2022
PHASE 1
A public-private partnership between the Egyptian government and Eva Pharma has resulted in another inactivated coronavirus vaccine called EgyVax. On Feb. 1, 2022, the researchers registered a Phase 1 trial.
Updated Feb. 7, 2022
PHASE 1
Vaccine name: Prime-2-CoV
Type: Injection
Speransa Therapeutics, based in Germany, builds vaccines using attenuated viruses. Their platform is a weakened version of the so-called Orf virus, which infects sheep. Speransa researchers engineered the virus to make two Covid proteins, spike and nucleocapsid. In June 2022, the company launched Phase 1 trials, testing their Prime-2-CoV vaccine as a booster.
Updated July 18, 2022
ABANDONED
In addition to its protein vaccine, the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey has also developed a vaccine that uses inactivated coronaviruses. On April 29, 2021, they registered a Phase 1 trial in Turkey. But the trial record shows that it has since been terminated, citing unsatisfactory antibody levels.
Updated Aug. 12, 2022
ABANDONED
EMERGENCY USE IN IRAN
On March 16, 2021, Iran’s Ministry of Defence announced the launch of a vaccine made of inactivated coronaviruses. Known as Fakhravac, the vaccine was named after Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, Iran’s top nuclear scientist who was killed in November. After the completion of a Phase 1 trial, Fakhravac entered a Phase 2 trial in June. In September it gained emergency use authorization before it was known how effective the vaccine was. But in October Iran announced it would abandon production of Fakhravac as Iranians turned to imported vaccines instead. Still, on Nov. 1, Tehran Times reported that the vaccine received emergency use authorization in Iran.
Emergency use in: Iran.
Updated Nov. 26, 2021
Fakhravac vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Fakhravac vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Fakhravac vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Fakhravac vaccine
IRAN
Approved
Early, limited or
emergency use
Tracking the Coronavirus
Additional reporting by Farnaz Fassihi, Denise Grady, Andrew E. Kramer, Hari Kumar, Cao Li, Jess Ruderman and Carlos Tejada.
Notes and corrections: Early versions of the tracker combined two vaccines by Sinopharm into one entry, before subsequent reporting confirmed they were two different vaccines. A previous version of the tracker stated that Pfizer had reached a deal with the E.U., when in fact the deal was made by AstraZeneca. A previous version of the tracker listed Canadian approval of the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, when in fact they were conditional authorizations. A previous version of the tracker stated that Migvax-101 was the name of the candidate developed by Oravax, when in fact it is a different vaccine.
Sources: World Health Organization, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Center for Biotechnology Information, New England Journal of Medicine, Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University. Cahill-Keyes map projection by Gene Keyes.