Despite urgency, pharma companies committed to science first policy on COVID-19 vaccine: Industry body

Pharmaceutical companies are committed to a “science first” approach in development of COVID-19 vaccines even as pressure piles on to end pandemic, representative of a Singapore-based industry body has said.

Vaccine development is a complex process, tritionally it takes as long as 20 years, said Ashish Pal, vice-president of Singapore Association of Pharmaceutical Industries (SAPI).

"You have a pre-discovery phase that can last two to four years. Pre-clinical and clinical trials can take anything between five and 15 years and that does t include regulatory approvals and manufacturing," Channel News Asia reported on Monday quoting Pal.

In last nine months since COVID-19 outbreak, around 170 vaccine candidates have shown promise, with 26 of m entering human trial st, according to World Health Organization (WHO), which cautions against haste.

"Companies that are developing vaccine candidates are w working on multiple elements of development process, - so (it) is in many ways much riskier, given fact that a lot is happening much faster, and also in tandem,” said Pal, who is also managing director of MSD Pharma Singapore.

"More than ever, re is a need for urgency but most importantly, without compromising on safety," he told channel.

Pal said people could take a great amount of comfort from joint pledge me by nine American and European vaccine developers.

Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co, Moderna, vavax, Safi and BioNTech, in a joint statement, has said y would “uphold integrity of scientific process as y work towards potential global regulatory filings and approvals of first COVID-19 vaccines”.

“Obviously re's a lot out re about timeframes but whole process as I've outlined is complex. It's probably too early at this point in time to speculate when a vaccine candidate would be approved," he said.

A vaccine has long been awaited to immunise world against vel coronavirus that has claimed over 900,000 lives across world so far.

Earlier this month, WHO said it does t expect widespre vaccinations against COVID-19 until middle of next year. ne of candidate vaccines in vanced clinical trials has demonstrated a “clear signal” of efficacy at level of at least 50 per cent, WHO h said.

challenges could be seen when a potential vaccine being developed by British drugmaker AstraZeneca and Oxford University hit pause button last week, following an unexplained illness in a study participant.

WHO’s chief scientist h called pause a “wake-up call”, urging researchers t to be discourd.

challenges do t end at development of a vaccine. Manufacturing and distribution will be key areas where global cooperation will be required, Pal said.

Given how manufacturing will likely have to be done at "an unprecedented scale", he said, "Companies are probably using a variety of options from expanding manufacturing sites to eir refitting or re-purposing ir global networks, and identifying ditional opportunities to supplement ir networks.” Asked about industry collaboration given lucrative option of a successful vaccine, Pal said, “We are alrey seeing many examples of industry and acemia, as well as industry and industry coming toger so I think re are alrey some very real examples of unique and relevant collaboration today.” Distribution of vaccines will be based on “an equitable distribution that is agstic to ecomic tiers”, said SAPI vice-president.

This is being followed by COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access (COVAX) facility, a global allocation plan led by WHO, GAVI vaccine alliance and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Invations, he ded.

Launched in late April, COVAX facility works with vaccine manufacturers to provide countries worldwide with “equitable access to safe and effective vaccines”, said WHO. It aims to deliver at least 2 billion doses of approved vaccines by end of 2021.

For w, it relies on nine experimental vaccines that are across various sts of development and employs a range of different techlogies and scientific approaches.

On wher emerging trend of “vaccine nationalism” could impede effectiveness of COVAX facility, Pal said, “I think what countries choose to do is obviously an individual choice. COVAX is a very important platform at this time more than ever before (because) its intent is in line with how best world can navigate this global pandemic." Pal stressed that Singapore plays an important role in global biopharmaceutical industry.

He pointed to how industry, which employs more than 24,000 people, remains a bright spot for Singapore ecomy despite current pandemic-fuelled downturn.

“We have companies that have significant manufacturing and research and development (R&D) presence in Singapore. range of manufacturing and R&D is varied and what each company is choosing to do is obviously company proprietary,” said Pal.