Did Trump's team bypass safer promising noncommercial Pitt vaccine for insider stock trades?

[lostnfound]

Last edited Fri May 8, 2020, 11:27 AM - Edit history (2)

The University of Pittsburgh vaccine development was in front of others as of April 2nd. By April 22nd, the NIH report describes “one of the most promising one of them” (sic) as Moderna, and an award of $483 M to Moderna for development of an mRNA vaccine. (It paints a less aggressive picture of PittCoVacc by ending with “the research team hopes to test...in a few months”.) Others here may be able to speak to the relative risks associated with an mRNA vaccine like Moderna’s compared to the traditional vaccine that Pitt had developed.

When Rick Bright filed his whistle blower complaint, he wrote that he had recommended a “Manhattan project” for vaccine development, and that we should take “multiple shots on goal” because it wasn’t clear which type of vaccine would work. (I take his complaint with a grain of salt since Peter Navarro is a hero in it, but nonetheless, a Manhattan Project seems in order.)

I read (around 10-14 days ago?) on Twitter that Pitt had applied for approval to proceed with the next phase of testing and hadn’t heard anything — was still waiting. If we see their micro needle array process get bought up or put into production, but no further work on their vaccine itself, then my suspicion is that a deal was done.

What is happening with the Pitt vaccine?

Feb 28th working to create vaccine
DU thread based on msn article

Apr 2nd Potential vaccine generates enough antibodies to fight off virus, first peer-reviewed study
DU thread based on Independent article

A potential coronavirus vaccine developed by US scientists has been found to produce antibodies capable of fighting off Covid-19 in the first peer-reviewed study of its kind.

The vaccine, which was tested on mice by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, generated the antibodies in quantities thought to be enough to “neutralise” the virus within two week of injection.

Apr 2nd Tests of potential coronavirus vaccine spur growth of virus-fighting antibodies

The vaccine does not have to be frozen when stored or transported; it can sit at room temperature. That would make the vaccine much cheaper to deliver to poorer countries.

Though the researchers could not say exactly how much a dose of the vaccine would cost, they estimated that the patch of needles used to deliver the vaccine would probably cost less than $10 a patch.

Apr 13th COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Shows Promise
DU thread based on this University of Pittsburgh medical center press release

Apr 22nd Review of all treatment and vaccine possibilities on NIH website
Current status of potential therapeutic candidates for the COVID-19 crisis
paper on NIH website

16. Vaccine

“There is no specific vaccine currently available for containing COVID-19 infection. To meet the urgent need for an effective vaccine in the context of active SARS-CoV-2 transmission, companies and institutions worldwide have been working on a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine through various approaches, resulting in a series of vaccine candidates (Routley, 2020). One of the most promising one of them is mRNA-1273, which is developed by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease scientists together with biotechnology company Moderna (Fig. 3) (Moderna, 2020a; NIH, 2020). As an mRNA vaccine, mRNA-1273 embedded in lipid nanoparticles encodes viral S proteins of SARS-CoV-2 and then delivers the antigen into human cells to elicit SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibodies and potent immune responses, thereby protecting healthy individuals against COVID-19 infection (Fig. 3). mRNA vaccine is superior to other conventional vaccines, given its high potency, short production cycles and safety as lack of actual viral genome (Ahn et al., 2020). A phase Ⅰ, open-label, dose-ranging trial of mRNA-1273 was conducted in 45 healthy adult volunteers aged 18 to 55 years with three different doses of mRNA-1273 to assess its efficacy and appropriate effective dose (Table 1) (NCT04283461). On April 16, 2020, Moderna received the award from US Government Agency BRADA for up to $483 million to accelerate development of mRNA-1273 against COVID-19 (Moderna, 2020b).

mRNA-1273 was the first vaccine to be tested in a clinical trial, followed closely by another promising candidate called Ad5-nCoV, which was jointly developed by Tianjin-based biotechnology company Cansino and the Institute of Biotechnology of the Academy of Military Medical Sciences. Developed with Cansino’s adenovirus-based viral vector vaccine technology platform, Ad5-nCoV uses replication-defective adenovirus type 5 as a vector to load SARS-CoV-2 gene fragments onto it to express the SARS-CoV-2 S protein (Fig. 3) (Shi et al., 2020b). According to Cansino, preclinical data in animal models demonstrated that Ad5-nCoV can elicit robust immune responses and a favorable safety profile (Mak, 2020). Currently, the phase Ⅰ clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of Ad5-nCoV has been initiated in Wuhan (Table 1) (Shi et al., 2020b).

A recently published study in the Lancet introduced a newly developed potentially effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccine named PittCoVacc, short for Pittsburgh Coronavirus Vaccine, developed by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine scientists (Kim et al., 2020). PittCoVacc uses S-protein fragments of SARS-CoV-2 to stimulate the generation of specific antibodies (Fig. 3). PittCoVacc is delivered with a novel technique known as microneedle array, a fingertip-sized patch of 400 tiny needles. This strategy can elicit more potent immune responses than conventional subcutaneous needle injection and has been demonstrated to be sufficiently safe. PittCoVacc has been tested immunogenicity in mice with the emergence of substantial SARS-CoV-2 antibodies within 2 weeks after prime immunization. The research team hoped to test PittCoVacc in humans in clinical trials in the next few months (Table 1) (ScienceDaily, 2020). “

[pwb]

1. If they can they will.

Pukes do things just because they can.

[lostnfound]

2. PittCoVacc "highly scalable". Moderna "supply-constrained.."

https://www.hospimedica.com/covid-19/articles/294781743/university-of-pittsburgh-school-of-medicines-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-shows-promise.html

The system also is highly scalable. The protein pieces are manufactured by a “cell factory” — layers upon layers of cultured cells engineered to express the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein — that can be stacked further to multiply yield. Purifying the protein also can be done at industrial scale. Mass-producing the microneedle array involves spinning down the protein-sugar mixture into a mold using a centrifuge. Once manufactured, the vaccine can sit at room temperature until it’s needed, eliminating the need for refrigeration during transport or storage.

When tested in mice, PittCoVacc generated a surge of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 within two weeks of the microneedle prick. Those animals have not yet been tracked over the long term, but the researchers noted that the mice which received their MERS-CoV vaccine produced a sufficient level of antibodies to neutralize the virus for at least a year, and so far the antibody levels of the SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated animals seem to be following the same trend.

Moderna CEO says supply of coronavirus vaccine will be limited, US will help decide who gets it first

If Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine proves to work, the company anticipates working “very closely”with the U.S. government to determine who will get the first doses, CEO Stephane Bancel told CNBC on Friday.
[…]
The potential vaccine, which was developed by researchers at Moderna and the National Institutes of Health, became the first candidate to enter a phase 1 human trial in March. The company has not published the results of the phase 1 trial yet but received federal approval to start a larger phase 2 trial soon. Bancel said the phase 3 trial will hopefully begin in the early summer.