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Medicine

AstraZeneca Tries Combining Its Covid-19 Vaccine With Russia's 'Sputnik V' Vaccine (reuters.com) 80

Posted by EditorDavid from the shots-in-the-dark dept.
Slashdot reader Hmmmmmm shared this report from Reuters: AstraZeneca is to start clinical trials to test a combination of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine with Russia's Sputnik V shot to see if this can boost the efficacy of the British drugmaker's vaccine, Russia's sovereign wealth fund said on Friday. Trials will start by the end of the year and Russia wants to produce the new vaccine jointly if it is proven to be effective, said the RDIF wealth fund, which has funded Sputnik V.

AstraZeneca said it was considering how it could assess combinations of different vaccines, and would soon begin exploring with Russia's Gamaleya Institute, which developed Sputnik V, whether two vaccines based on a common-cold virus could be successfully combined... Sputnik's Russian developers say clinical trials, still under way, have shown it has an efficacy rate of over 90%, higher than that of AstraZeneca's own vaccine and similar to those of U.S. rivals Pfizer and Moderna.

Some Western scientists have raised concerns about the speed at which Russia has worked, giving the regulatory go-ahead for its vaccines and launching large-scale vaccinations before full trials to test Sputnik V's safety and efficacy have been completed. Russia says the criticism is unfounded.
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AstraZeneca Tries Combining Its Covid-19 Vaccine With Russia's 'Sputnik V' Vaccine More

AstraZeneca Tries Combining Its Covid-19 Vaccine With Russia's 'Sputnik V' Vaccine

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  • Some Western scientists have raised concerns about the speed at which Russia has worked, giving the regulatory go-ahead for its vaccines and launching large-scale vaccinations before full trials to test Sputnik V's safety and efficacy have been completed.
     
    It seems that every vaccine for this has been rushed due to how little time the virus has had to make an impact. I refuse to be a guinea pig.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Sebby ( 238625 )

      It seems that every vaccine for this has been rushed due to how little time the virus has had to make an impact. I refuse to be a guinea pig.

      Also... the name - seems like they wanted to sound like they were first to come out with it or something...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      The rich and the politicians were the first to get it (amid loud international criticism), it seems they were fairly confident in it and don't seem to be keeling over in any great numbers. It's good enough for some of the richest people in the world and I'm in an at-risk group, if it's what is available first I'll take it.

      • The rich and the politicians were the first to get it (amid loud international criticism), it seems they were fairly confident in it and don't seem to be keeling over in any great numbers.

        As a point of fact, you dont know what anybody took, nor will you know if you ever get the same thing as them or even if they took anything at all.. Once you accept what the facts actually are, only then can we have a rational discussion. We may decide to presume things together, but you dont get to decide that all discussions have to just swallow your, frankly unfounded, presumptions. You begin communication by not being a dishonest assfuck.

        Amid predictable international criticism, they never took a sin

        • Re: (Score:1)

          by Anonymous Coward

          you dont know what anybody took, nor will you know if you ever get the same thing as them or even if they took anything at all..

          The possibilities for psycho conspiracy theories are endless!

        • You do realise that rich early adopters always get inferior products compared to that of poorer folks, right?

          Buy cheap, buy twice is a falsehood. The truth is that if you buy early, you buy often.

      • Rich people will buy anything as long as it is the most expensive :) You have no idea what a hassle these expensive cars are!

    • Re:Time to market? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by hey! ( 33014 ) on Sunday December 13, 2020 @04:24PM (#60826758) Homepage Journal

      As long as you meet the guidelines -- as in read all the fine print about who should and should not receive the vaccine -- you should be pretty safe with any of the three first vaccines.

      The Phase 3 trials had some limitations -- for example Pfizer's didn't include people with histories of anaphylactic reactions to medicines -- so if you fit in one of those limitation groups you should discuss the pros and cons of the vaccine with your doctor. That's a good idea if you have *anything* in your medical history that's unusual. Also if you're over 75 or under 18 years old. You should not make any decision this important based on shit you've read on the Internet.

      This is a time of rapid technological advance. It's no accident that the first three vaccines out of the gate use some kind of genetic technology -- that eliminates months of trial and error. The mRNA vaccines are also much more precisely targeted vaccine than traditional methods using whole viruses. One mRNA vaccine will be just like any other, except for the single protein it encodes. It's a sniper's bullet rather than a shotgun blast.

      This is going to revolutionize cancer treatment in a few years. Taking years to develop a vaccine is going to be a thing of the past -- like taking days to cross the Atlantic.

    • The sample sizes are surprisingly large with these trials. 40K seems to be the magic number. I've gone back through Pubmed to look at similar trials, and rarely have they ever been this big.

      The trial stages might have been quick, but fast isnt an important metric, its how big the sample sizes are, and these appear to be big samples sizes leading to quite big. This means the confidence and error metrics are all very convincing.

      I'll be happy to take the damn things day one. The utterly tiny prospect of an ave

  • AstraZen been criticized for lack of transparency (Score:4, Informative)

    by JoeyRox ( 2711699 ) on Sunday December 13, 2020 @01:24PM (#60826178)
    What better way to solve that than to partner up with Russia, a country renowned for its transparency.

    • What better way to solve that than to partner up with Russia, a country renowned for its transparency.

      Yes, because we all know USA deserves 1st prize in the contest of transparency. *THE* USA which is trying to incarcerate Assange, Snowden and others for whistle blowing.

      Of course, bashing on Russia's vaccine has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that they do have a vaccine that's (1) a lot easier to handle logisitcally, and (2) doesn't seem to have any other disadvantages than Pfizer/BioNTech's -- similar efficiency, similaryl poorly tested etc. /sarcasm

      The only difference is that the Russians pokered

  • Some Western scientists have raised concerns about the speed at which Russia has worked, giving the regulatory go-ahead for its vaccines and launching large-scale vaccinations before full trials to test Sputnik V's safety and efficacy have been completed. Russia says the criticism is unfounded.

    There's a very simple litmus test for what Russia is claiming and that's what Mr. Putin thinks about its own vaccine. He has not been vaccinated [interfax.ru].

    It's amazing how the Kremlin PR machine is managing to lie in two co

    • Re:A simple truth (Score:5, Informative)

      by Vadim Makarov ( 529622 ) <makarov@vad1.com> on Sunday December 13, 2020 @02:41PM (#60826402) Homepage

      There's a very simple litmus test for what Russia is claiming and that's what Mr. Putin thinks about its own vaccine. He has not been vaccinated [interfax.ru].

      Sputnik 5 is currently only offered to people between 18 and 60 years old. A clinical trial for older population is underway.

      I am 46 and I've got the first of the two shots two days ago at my local clinic near Moscow, no questions asked. My 61 years old neighbour has asked the clinic if he could get it too and has been refused based on his age.

      Putin is 68.

      • Why the hell is it not offered to people over 60?? That's excluding the most vulnerable group?

      • Sputnik 5 is currently only offered to people between 18 and 60 years old. A clinical trial for older population is underway.

        The age restriction has been removed today [meduza.io]. The data has shown it is more than 90% effective in people over 60.

        Nearly anyone over 18 (barring a few medical restrictions) can now get vaccinated.

    • It'd be a whole lot easier for them to lie about him taking it than about it not working or being unsafe.

  • So Russia sponsored the vax-afraiders in the West to discredit our own vaccines while Russia peddles its own vaccine. Gotta love their diabolics hahaha.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Russia sponsored

      [Citation Needed]

      The anti-vaxxers have never needed any external funding that I've ever seen, hell, they don't even need facts or logic.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • Because Russia distributes outside the US to Africa, South America, India, Middle East, and even some European countries. They eliminate competition by getting the western vaccine manufacturers out of their way.

  • While proper western companies only skipped 3 years and 9 months ... it's an outrage. I'm not saying there is no justification for rushing, but complaining about Russia's level of testing when the level is already so low everywhere is miserly.

    A bigger issue is cooperating with a company from a totalitarian nation led by someone who quite recently ordered an assassination in their country, which also killed innocents ... but when there's billions to be earned with Corona vaccines there's not a lot of room fo

    • They didn't even skip any testing. The testing is actually still ongoing, the only thing they skipped was waiting for the testing to be complete before announcing success (so bragging rights) and then doing a similar emergency use to what the UK and US are doing.

  • Maybe it is because of preexisting immunity ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kbahey ( 102895 ) on Sunday December 13, 2020 @03:00PM (#60826482) Homepage

    Both Sputnik V and Oxford/AstraZeneca are based on adenovirus as a vector to carry the gene that makes the Coronavirus Spike protein as part of its DNA payload.

    But they use different strains: the AstraZeneca uses ChAdOx1 (Chimpanzee Adenovirus Oxford 1), which is a chimpanzee virus, in the hope that humans would not have natural immunity to the viral vector, destroying it before it can infect cells and do its spike protein synthesis thing.

    Sputnik V uses two different human strains: the first does is Ad5, which is very common (something like 20% in Europe/America, but 80% in Africa). The second dose is based on Ad26, which is less common.

    Perhaps they want to replace the Ad5 first dose of Sputnik by AstraZeneca's so there is a lower chance of prevalent immunity interfering with the overall effectiveness of the mixed two dose regimen?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      That would make sense. The screwup with the dosing strongly suggests that AZ's vaccine is limited by an immune reaction to the second dose. It's likely Russia's is limited by immune reactions to either or both doses.

      You could also just mix them together.

    • That is how I understand it indeed. That the Oxford people think their vaccine worked less well if the first dose was higher because of acquired vector immunity(immunity to the carrier virus), Then Gamaleya offered them their adenovirus vectors, and Oxford will use the Ad26.
      I like this news because one, it is a nice example of cooperation and two, the resulting vaccines are a lot cheaper and easier to distribute than the mRna vaccines so they will help a lot more people.

  • Do you want zombies? (Score:3)

    by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Sunday December 13, 2020 @03:13PM (#60826522)

    Because that's how you get zombies!

  • Bioethicists, Soviet and other (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In Soviet Russia, bioethicists actually care about reducing deaths by accelerating vaccine distribution.

    Everywhere else, bioethicists prefer to just watch the world burn. Now who has it backwards?

  • Putting aside the distrust in the Russian establishment that seems to be in vogue around here (I'll grant, they earn that distrust) , the strategy of multiple vaccines seems an interesting one for evolutionary reasons.

    If these things create different types of immune responses, using both means that if the bug tries to mount an evolutionary defense against one sort of response, it'll still fall prey to the other. Well thats the theory. That is to say, its not so interesting whether it defends a particular pe

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

      That doesn't seem likely. All the vaccines target the same thing (the spike protein). The differences between them is primarily in the delivery mechanism. Taking more than one vaccine is potentially very useful in the case of these two vaccines because they both depend on sneaking carrier viruses past your immune system. The AZ one has to do it twice with the same virus.

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