How protein-based Covid vaccines could change the pandemic

> Protein vaccines have been used for decades to protect people from hepatitis, shingles and other viral infections. ... Late-stage clinical-trial data so far look promising, demonstrating strong protection with fewer side effects than other COVID-19 shots typically cause [...] Protein-based vaccines - with their inexpensive production protocols and logistical advantages, including stability at a broad range of temperatures - could help to narrow the immunization gap between rich and poor countries

> On 1 November, Indonesia granted [Novavax] vaccine its first emergency authorization [apparently still the only one]

> Protein-based designs [are] slower ... than other vaccine technologies. ... The [production] process involves many steps, each of which has to be optimized for making a specific protein

Protein based vaccines in late stage clinical trials are a few: Biological E (India); Clover Biopharmaceuticals (China); Medicago (Canada); Novavax (Maryland); Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline (France/UK); SK bioscience (South Korea). The various products differ substantially in the payload («some use single proteins, others triads; some use full-length spike protein, others just a fragment; some proteins are free-floating, others are packaged together into nanoparticles») and adjuvants. Efficacies, accordingly, will vary.

> The shots also appear to be safe. None of the 50 or so protein-based COVID-19 vaccines now in clinical testing around the world have elicited any major side effects. Even many of the reactions typically elicited by the mRNA or viral-vector jabs - headaches, fevers, nausea and chills - have proven far less common with the protein-based alternatives. For example, less than 1% of individuals who received a protein-based shot from Taiwan’s Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corporation [makers of the "MVC COVID-19 vaccine", used in Taiwan with emergential status approval, using recombinant S-2P spike protein adjuvanted with CpG 1018] developed fevers in clinical studies. ... The safety profile is very much like those of influenza vaccines

Worth a highlight and repeating: «None of the 50 or so protein-based COVID-19 vaccines now in clinical testing around the world have elicited any major side effects».

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As I was looking for information about the Taiwanese MVC, I met the Wikipedia page "List of COVID-19 vaccine authorizations", https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_COVID-19_vaccine_autho... , which some surely will find interesting.