The next generation of COVID-19 vaccines could be launched as a pill or a nasal spray and be easier to store and transport than the current handful of vaccine shots at work to contain the spread of the pandemic world-wide, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The newer vaccines are from the US government labs and companies including Sanofi , Altimmune and Gritstone Oncology with the potential to offer better immune responses and be more effective against novel viral variants, possibly helping fight the future pandemics, the report mentioned.
The US has currently authorised vaccines from Pfizer Inc and its partner BioNTech SE as well as Moderna and Johnson & Johnson. These vaccines need to be transported and stored at a low temperature and are administered in two dose.
The next generation vaccines could ‘constitute some improvement’ over the limitations mentioned above and make vaccination efforts in rural areas easier, the report said, citing Gregory Poland, professor and vaccine researcher at the Mayo Clinic in Rocheste.
“You will see second-generation, third-generation vaccines,” Professor Poland said, according to the WSJ report.
As of now, there are 277 COVID-19 vaccines under development across the globe, of which 93 have entered the human testing phase, the report said citing the World Health Organization.
Most of the vaccines under testing are injected but there are two oral formulations and seven nasal-spray formulations mentioned the WSJ report.
Many of the next-generation vaccines are in the early-to-middle phase of human testing which means they may not become available until this year end or early 2022.
Sounding a note of caution the report added that there is no guarantee the vaccines will pass testing and some of the companies developing them, such as Altimmune and Gritstone, have never launched vaccine to market.
