COVID-19 Vaccine Landscape (August 11, 2020)

About the COVID-19 Vaccine Bullseye

The COVID-19 Bullseye provides an ‘at-a-glance’ review of the vaccine landscape – showing highest trial phase, vaccine technology, and lead organization for each vaccine.

Trial phases are shown in the concentric rings, with programs closer to the center further along in the development process (from Phase 1 in the outer ring to Launched at the center).

The National Institutes of Health describe clinical trial status as follows:

• Phase 1: Studies that are usually conducted with healthy volunteers and that emphasize safety. The goal is to find out what the drug's most frequent and serious adverse events are and, often, how the drug is metabolized and excreted.
• Phase 2: Studies that gather preliminary data on effectiveness (does the vaccine invoke an immune response). Safety continues to be evaluated, and short-term adverse events are studied.
• Phase 3: Studies that gather more information about safety and effectiveness by studying different populations and different dosages and by using the drug in combination with other drugs.

The bullseye is divided into sectors representing vaccine technologies, which are described in the sidebar at right.

Each vaccine is labeled by a commonly used name and by the organizations leading the development of the vaccine.

Vaccines are marked with the American flag if the trials in ClinicalTrials.gov list only the United States as a trial location.

What Has Changed In This Update?

A lot has changed in the last two weeks. The J&J vaccine finally appears in clinicaltrials.gov search results in Phase 3. Together with the Merck vaccine which is now showing up with Phase 1 trials, it appears that all five vaccines listed in Operation Warp Speed are now on the landscape. Two additional new vaccines have been listed, and one new technology "Replicating Viral Vector" has been extracted.

Equally interesting is what hasn't changed. Despite news reports that the Russian Gamalaya vaccine has been launched, there is no Phase 3 trial yet in clinicaltrials.gov, so the project remains displayed in Phase 2.

Do You Find This Bullseye Interesting?

The COVID-19 Bullseye is an example of a BizDash project. BizDash (BizInt Smart Strategy Dashboards) is a service offered by the BizInt team. We use BizInt Smart Charts tools with supported drug pipeline, clinical trial and biomedical literature databases to create data-centric reports and visualizations targeted to your analytic needs.

Contact us if you would like to learn more.

How We Built This

The VP-SCE Bullseye for COVID-19 vaccines uses data from clinicaltrials.gov, expert analysis, and the powerful data analysis and visualization software tools in the BizInt Smart Charts product family to create a bullseye-styled graphic, following leading contenders from Phase 1 clinical trials to launch.

• We searched NIH ClinicalTrials.gov using the link on the clinicaltrials.gov homepage for "clinical studies related to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19)." The standard exports offered by clinicaltrials.gov do not include all necessary fields. The only export with the full set of fields is XML. This includes essential data for the bullseye visualization including trial sponsors and countries. We used the BizInt Smart Charts Drug Development Suite to import the XML file and automatically create a tabular view. This table was then exported to VantagePoint - Smart Charts Edition (VP-SCE) for further analysis and to generate the visualization.
• We filtered to vaccine trials and identified the vaccines for the bullseye. From the full set of trial records, a keyword search was run with VP-SCE and reviewed to identify trials for vaccines. That identified set of trials was checked against other public information to identify additional vaccines. For clarity's sake, vaccines currently marketed for another disease were omitted.
• We refined data to assign vaccine technology, trial phase, and lead organization to each vaccine. VP-SCE was used to assign a vaccine technology category based on the record content combined with review of additional publicly available sources such as the WHO list of vaccines in development. Since there may be multiple trials for the same vaccine, placement on the bullseye is determined by the phase of the most advanced trial. Cleanup tools in VP-SCE enabled easy review of drug and sponsor information to select a single drug name and a key sponsor or sponsors for each vaccine. The country field from the data was analyzed to identify drugs with trials in a single country or multiple countries.
• We generated the bullseye visualization. We then used VP-SCE to automatically build the bullseye visualization, placing each drug according to the most advanced clinical trial phase and type of vaccine. The flexibility of the software allows the easy generation of multiple bullseyes using the same dataset.
• We are updating the bullseye on a regular basis. To generate a new bullseye we use the Update tool in BizInt Smart Charts to automatically identify new trial records as well as records that have changed. This streamlines the process of generating a new bullseye since only a fraction of the trial records need to be reviewed.

Notes

• The bullseye is updated every two weeks. Current content on ClinicalTrials.gov may be different due to the rapid pace of change in this area.
• Only trials included in ClinicalTrials.gov are included in this analysis.

COVID-19 Visualization Archive

• September 1, 2021 — The BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine is now fully approved, progress for NovaVaxx, and a new intranasal program from CyanVac.
• August 2, 2021 — A quiet month with no changes visible on the bullseye.
• June 29, 2021 — Moderna program for the 351 variant starts phase 3 trials in the US. We also added a ring in anticipation of a full approval of one or more vaccines.
• June 1, 2021 — Sanofi/GSK program moves starts phase 3 trials including in the US.
• May 18, 2021 — No changes in the US/UK/EU bullseye, but quite a bit of activity in the rest of the world.
• May 4, 2021 — A small update this time, with one new vaccine project and one phase change.
• April 20, 2021 — Updating both the US/UK/Europe bullseye and the bullseye for programs in the rest of the world. Four new vaccine programs appear.
• April 6, 2021 — We have updated the US/UK/Europe bullseye and the corresponding piano chart. Two new vaccines appear, one starting trials, and one newly listing trials in the regions we are watching.
• March 23, 2021 — We have updated both the US/UK/Europe bullseye and the Rest Of World version, as well as adding a piano chart to show some of the detail on the US/UK/Europe data. Quite a bit of updates... click through to read more.
• March 9, 2021 — This update looks at the US/UK/Europe vaccine development, and reflects the emergency authorization of the Janssen (J&J) vaccine.
• February 23, 2021 — The first update of our COVID-19 landscape using commercial data sources. We have split the data set into programs in the US/UK/Europe and a second set for the remaining vaccines, which is easy with these databases.
• February 9, 2021 — A reset in our COVID-19 landscape, we have rebuilt the bullseye using data from commercial drug pipeline databases rather than clinicaltrials.gov. We are still working through the implications, but this is a good first look at the new direction.
• January 26, 2021 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with very little movement from the previous report.
• January 12, 2021 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, featuring an EUA request for the AZ/Oxford vaccine.
• December 29, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, featuring the authorization of a second vaccine, this time from Moderna.
• December 15, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, featuring the authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the US.
• December 1, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, showing several phase changes and two new vaccines.
• November 17, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with two new vaccines in Phase 1.
• November 3, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with a new vaccine from IIBR.
• October 20, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with the Novavax project moving into Phase 3 and two new vaccines appearing.
• October 6, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with trials for four new vaccines appearing.
• September 22, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development, with trials for two new vaccines appearing.
• September 10, 2020 — A first timeline showing trials for the Phase 3 candidates.
• September 8, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development. Several new projects listed, and several projects move to higher phase.
• August 25, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development. Grouping all Viral Vector projects together now. Trials for one new Sinopharm vaccine added in Phase 3.
• August 11, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development. J&J vaccine now appears in clinicaltrials.gov searches, three other new vaccine projects, and one new technology detected.
• July 29, 2020 — A bullseye showing the current state of COVID-19 vaccine development. BioNTech/Pfizer trials move to Phase 3.
• July 28, 2020 — A bullseye showing the state of COVID-19 vaccine development.
• July 14, 2020 — A bullseye showing the state of COVID-19 vaccine development. Moderna/NIH trials move to Phase 3.
• July 7, 2020 — The first bullseye showing the state of COVID-19 vaccine development.

Media Inquiries

See: BizInt Solutions and Search Technology Publish COVID-19 Bullseye Graphic to Aid Understanding of Vaccine Progress

Vaccine Technologies

• DNA
  These vaccines contain no part of the virus. DNA vaccines use gene technology to introduce RNA into the body. DNA contains the genetic instructions to make proteins. The body uses the DNA from the vaccine to make virus proteins which then cause the immune response. Several vaccines are in development using DNA technology, but none are approved.
• Immune cell
  With this vaccine, live immune cells from healthy donors are used to induce a immune response. This is a novel technology.
• Inactivated
  Inactivated vaccines contain a killed version of the virus. This is the same technology used for the annual flu shot. Because the whole virus is present, there could be more side effects with this technology, but fewer than with a live vaccine.
• Modified Antigen-Presenting Cells
  Antigen-presenting cells have the part of the virus that induces the immune response on the surface. Rather than using COVID-19 or its components, this technology uses a different vector that has been modified to have the key COVID-19 proteins on the cell surface. In the case of COVID-19, these vaccines target the spike protein visible on the outside of the COVID-19 virus.
• Non-replicating viral vector
  This technology uses a different virus instead of COVID-19 to induce the immune response. A non-replicating vector does not multiply in the body. Additionally, the vector may be a weakened version of a virus or the body may already be immune to the selected vector virus. This vector virus has been modified to produce virus proteins that induce the immune response. The U.S. Strategic National Stockpile includes a smallpox vaccine using this technology.
• Protein subunit
  Rather than the whole virus like inactivated vaccines, these vaccines contain only the part that stimulates an immune response. Because it is only part of the virus, there may be fewer side effects. Some pertussis vaccines use this technology.
• Replicating viral vector
  These vaccines use a different virus instead of COVID-19 to induce the immune response. This vector virus has been modified to produce COVID-19 virus proteins. A replicating vector can multiply in the body, but is weakened so that it does not cause disease and generally cannot replicate as rapidly. But because it is able to replicate, this increases the body's exposure. That could mean a stronger or longer lasting immune response.
• RNA
  These vaccines contain no part of the virus. RNA vaccines use gene technology to introduce RNA into the body. RNA transfers the genetic information from DNA to make proteins. The body uses the RNA from the vaccine to make virus proteins which then cause the immune response. Several vaccines are in development using RNA technology, but none are approved.
• Virus-like particle
  VLP vaccines use gene technology to produce particles that resemble the shape of the virus. The particles can cause an immune response, but are non-infectious. This is the technology behind the HPV vaccines.