A different kind of Covid vaccine is about ready to roll
npr.org
npr.org
I guess it's a quiet journalistic day, and someone at NPR decided to run a story on nothing. Back in June someone at the Atlantic decided to crown the Novavax vaccine as the best out there [1]: "The mRNA Vaccines Are Extraordinary, but Novavax Is Even Better". There's only one problem: if you can't manufacture something, it doesn't matter how good it is. It's as good as if it doesn't exist.
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/06/novavax-n...
These filings mean Novavax thinks it has licked its manufacturing problems, because getting an authorization requires convincing regulators you can reliably produce the vaccine.
Taylor expects the company will seek emergency use authorization in this country early next year. She says to boost manufacturing capacity, Novavax has teamed up with several vaccine manufacturers, including the Serum Institute of India, the world's largest maker of vaccines.
"So we have a tremendous amount of confidence that with everything we have learned over the past year, as well as the expertise of all of our partners, that we'll be in a great position to produce over 2 billion doses in 2022," she says.
I'm guessing the subunit protein vaccine has to inject all the spike proteins the immune system will need in one go, vs the mRNA vaccine which can take advantage of the body's cells to manufacture them.