Nine COVID-19 Vaccines, With Over 8 Billion Doses Preordered Globally So Far

Year 2020 started in a way no one expected it to -- with novel coronavirus causing a world-wide pandemic and claiming lives of people. And that¡¯s how the whole year went along.

However, as the year came to an end, we started seeing vaccines show their effectiveness against the novel coronavirus and in no time, nations have permitted the use of the vaccines.

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This has led to a massive demand for vaccines by nations around the world -- many of which have not even been approved for use. A recent article on Nature (based on data from Airfinity, up to 19 November) has shed light on the kind of demand vaccines are currently at. Here are the vaccines that are currently in the lineup to save the lives of people around the world.

Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccine

The ChAdOx1 adenovirus vaccine developed by researchers at Oxford and AstraZeneca was one of the first that showed promise in being effective against the novel coronavirus, and even with 70 percent effectiveness, it is the most pre-ordered vaccine in the world at around 3.29 billion doses.

In India, the vaccine will be developed by Serum Institute of India to help deal with demand in India and select nations around the world. One of the primary reasons its the most ordered is that it is also the most affordable vaccine in the lot, at around US $3¨C4 per dose, which is between five and ten times cheaper than the estimated prices of other leading vaccines by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna respectively.

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Novavax

Next on the list of being the most preordered vaccine is by Novavax with preorders around 1.38 billion doses. Based out of Maryland, The Novavax vaccine makes use of a custom-made spike protein that mimics the natural spike protein in the novel coronavirus.

Novavax has developed its recombinant nanoparticle technology for years and eventually applied it for the first time in its COVID-19 vaccine. What¡¯s fascinating is that this vaccine hasn¡¯t even revealed results on the effectiveness against the novel coronavirus.

Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine

Next on the list is the BNT162 vaccine developed by American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German pharmaceutical company BioNTech, which also was the first vaccine to have been approved for use in the UK, US, Canada and several other parts of the world.

The mRNA vaccine showed the effectiveness of a whopping 95 percent. Today, over 1.28 billion doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID vaccine have been ordered around the world, and the demand continues to rise.

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Johnson and Johnson Vaccine

Another vaccine that is yet to reveal its effectiveness against the novel coronavirus but has drawn a lot of attention in terms of preorders is the vaccine being developed by the US pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson.

The vaccine which is of a recombinant adenovirus kind, and is still in the phase of late-human trials which have commenced sometime in December. As of now, the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine has drawn preorders of around 1.27 billion doses.

Sanofi/GSK Vaccine

Sanofi/GSK¡¯s COVID-19 vaccine has managed to garner preorders of over 1.23 billion doses, while the vaccine is still under early stages of trials. Phase I and II trials interim results revealed an immune response similar to patients who recovered from COVID-19 in adults (aged 18 to 49 years). However, it showed an insufficient response in older adults.

Sanofi/GSK have revealed that they plan to refine the concentration of antigen to offer high-level immune response across all age groups. If everything goes according to the plan, the vaccine could be made available in Q4 2021.

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Moderna

Moderna was the first ever to announce that they¡¯re working on developing a vaccine to fight against the novel coronavirus. And the vaccine, after its trials has managed to be up to 95 percent effective against SARS CoV-2. However, surprisingly, the mRNA vaccine has only managed to get preorders for around 780 million doses. It is also one of the most expensive vaccines on this list, priced at $32 to $37 per dose.

CureVac

Another vaccine that has got quite a few preorders despite still undergoing trials is CVnCoV by Curevac. It has received preorders for 410 million doses as of now. The vaccine is essentially a non-chemically modified mRNA, encoding the prefusion stabilised full-length spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2.

The vaccine recently announced the commencement of phase III of its vaccine trials in healthcare workers at the University Medical Center Mainz, Germany.

Sputnik-V by Gamaleya

Russian vaccine Sputnik V was the first vaccine in the world that was approved for use, after it reportedly showed up to 94 percent effectiveness against the novel coronavirus. However, as of now, only 340 million doses for the vaccine have been preordered as of now. Russia is currently vaccinating people who are at high risk of contracting the novel coronavirus -- doctors, teachers etc.

They expect to vaccinate 2 million people by the end of this year. The vaccine is also undergoing phase 2 and 3 trials in India at Kanpur¡¯s Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Medical College after Dr Reddy¡¯s Laboratories got approval from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI).

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Sinovac

COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese pharmaceutical giant Sinovac, as of now has preorders for around 260 million doses. The vaccine is still under development and in recently, in a clinical trial conducted in Brazil, the vaccine showed up to 50 percent effectiveness against the novel coronavirus, barely scraping the minimum requirement set by the FDA. the developers of the vaccine haven¡¯t revealed anything further pertaining to the vaccine as of now.