Corona: Pharmacopoeia checks vaccine

Florian Tiefenböck studied human medicine at the LMU Munich. In March 2014, he joined as a student and has supported the editorial team with medical articles ever since. After receiving his medical license and practical work in internal medicine at the University Hospital Augsburg, he has been a permanent member of the team since December 2019 and, among other things, ensures the medical quality of the tools.

More posts by Florian Tiefenböck All content is checked by medical journalists.

It could be a decisive step on the way to a corona vaccine: The European regulatory authority responsible for vaccines has started to review a vaccine co-developed by Oxford University.

It is the first time that the early assessment has happened in the European Union for a corona vaccine. The vaccine was developed by the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Don't jump to conclusions

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) warned on Thursday against jumping to conclusions: This does not yet mean that the vaccine can already be assessed as effective and safe. That still has to be shown in the review.

In view of the urgency of the situation, this review will be carried out using an accelerated procedure. The authority checks data while it is being collected in order to save time. Usually these tests have to be completed first and then all results are presented to the EMA at once. You can read more about possible approval procedures in our article "Drug approval".

Early release of the vaccine?

With the current so-called rolling review process, it would be conceivable that the vaccine will be released just a few days after the end of the tests - but only if the authorities are convinced of its effectiveness and harmlessness.

The EMA cannot say how long the review and assessment will take. Tests with thousands of subjects are in progress, the results are expected in the next "weeks and months".

Promising candidate

So far, the agent is one of the promising candidates among the potential corona vaccines. Many countries, including Germany, have signed contracts with AstraZeneca for a total of billions of cans.

The AstraZeneca active ingredient AZD1222 is based on the weakened version of a chimpanzee cold virus. It is harmless to humans. The virus contains genetic material of a Sars-CoV-2 surface protein with which the virus docks on human cells. After the vaccination, this protein should be produced in the body and then activate the immune system. The aim is for the immune system to produce specific antibodies and develop an immune memory, for example via T memory cells. You can find out more about how the immune system works on our overview page. (ft / dpa)

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