AstraZeneca Plc suffered an early setback Monday in its efforts to create a more effective Covid-19 vaccine. The nasal spray was not tested well enough to be used in an earlier test.
According to Oxford researchers, the vaccine didn’t trigger an immune response in the nasal mucosa tissue and in the rest of human body. London’s Astra shares dropped less than 1 percent.
This approach was being investigated by a small number of companies, including the UK drugmaker. It argued that nasal inoculation can stop the virus at its entry point. Others include Meissa Vaccines Inc. Bharat Biotech India Ltd. and CanSino Biologics Inc. are two of the Indian and Chinese companies that have developed nasal products that have been approved as boosters by their local regulators.
Sandy Douglas, lead investigator of the Astra trial, said that the setback shows “there are likely difficulties in making nasal Sprays a reliable option.”
The vaccine was used as an initial vaccination and as a booster in the immunization of 30 people. Douglas said that the data from peer-reviewed studies supporting the Indian and Chinese nasal products has not been made public.
In a statement, he stated that vaccines to prevent the spread of respiratory pandemic viruses are urgently needed. He also suggested that safe and practical delivery methods at large scale would be used.
Andrew Freedman from Cardiff University is a reader on infectious diseases. He called the trial results disappointing but also said that they shouldn’t deter future research to create more effective intranasal vaccinations to protect against Covid-19, and other respiratory infections.
Astra’s injectable Covid vaccination, also developed by scientists at Oxford’s Jenner Institute and Moderna Inc., has not been as widely utilized as messenger RNA shots from BioNTech SE and the partnership between Pfizer Inc.
Flumist by Astra is also available in nasal spray form. It can protect the respiratory tract from viral attack.
Astra and NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre supported Oxford’s trial. The trial began in mid-2021 and ended in 2022. Participants weren’t excluded based upon prior infections. Douglas suggested that vaccine failure could result from the vaccine being swallowed or destroyed in the stomach. The statement said that the results were published in The Lancet’s eBioMedicine open accessibility journal.
