AstraZeneca and Russia’s Gamaleya Institute, which developed the Sputnik V vaccine, has signed a memorandum of intent on cooperation, reports Reuters.
Russia’s RDIF sovereign wealth fund said this month AstraZeneca would start clinical trials to test a combination of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine with the Sputnik V shot to see if this can boost the efficacy of the British drugmaker’s vaccine, reports Reuters.
In a pressrelease, the Gamaleya Center, announced that AstraZeneca will test using component of Sputnik V in clinical trials of its own COVID-19 vaccine.
On November 23, 2020, following results which showed high efficacy for the Sputnik V vaccine, RDIF and the Gamaleya Center offered AstraZeneca the use of one of the two components of the Sputnik V vaccine.
AstraZeneca accepted the proposal by RDIF and the Gamaleya Center to use one of the two vectors of the Sputnik V vaccine in additional clinical trials of its own vaccine, which will commence before the end of this year.
The regimen with two different adenoviral vectors for a prime and a boost immunization is a unique, states the Gamaleya scientists. It helps to completely avoid immunity to the first vector, which forms after the first inoculation and thus to raise efficacy and create long-term immunity. Among the leading COVID-19 vaccines only Sputnik V is using the two-vector technology, they state.
Photo: The Gamaleya National Center
