MADRID – The ‘made in Spain’ corona vaccine could be available in and outside Spain in a few months. The Medicines Agency this week approved the final phase of the clinical trials. These involved 3,000 people in hospitals in Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
Hipra is the Spanish variant of the now approved corona vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna. Since the start of the pandemic, the Catalan pharmaceutical company from Girona has been developing a Spanish vaccine.
Final phase of Spanish corona vaccine development
And with results, because the clinical trials are the last phase of the approval of this vaccine. 3,000 volunteers over the age of 16 will participate. During this clinical phase, the safety and efficacy of the vaccine will be tested, as has been done previously with the now approved corona vaccines from Pfizer, among others.
The clinical trials also include the first step of submitting a marketing authorization application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
Where do clinical trials take place?
The clinical trials will take place in 20 hospitals, 17 of which will be in Spain, two in Portugal, and one in Italy. Furthermore, the people participating in the trials will be followed for 52 weeks. However, the data relevant to the study will be obtained in a much shorter period of time.
Precisely for this reason, if the results from the trials are successful, the pharmaceutical company from Catalonia expects to be able to market the vaccine in the second quarter of this year. The pharmaceutical company said it can handle a production capacity of 600 million doses by 2022. In 2023, this number could even be doubled.
Hipra vaccine works like other MRNA vaccines
Researcher Rafel Ramos told the Spanish news agency EFE on Tuesday that the Spanish vaccine consists of a protein preparation that simulates part of the virus and that, when the virus enters the body, triggers an immune response that is withheld for a while by the body. This allows our immune system to act quickly and protect us against infection or hospitalisation.
The Catalan pharmaceutical company says that during previous preclinical trials, the vaccine gave a very good immune response against the various variants of the coronavirus. According to the pharmaceutical company, the Hipra vaccine also offers sufficient protection against the omikron variant.
Hipra specialised in veterinary medicine
It is special to report that Hipra from Girona is normally involved in research into the production of veterinary products. Thanks to support from the European Commission and the Spanish government, Hipra has attracted several researchers, which made it possible to conduct research into developing a vaccine against Covid-19.
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