U.S. Biotech Firm’s Israeli Chief Medical Officer Says Its COVID-19 Vaccine Will Be Ready at End of the Year

The Israeli chief medical officer of the Massachusetts-based biotech firm Moderna told Israeli television on May 18 that the company’s COVID-19 vaccine likely will be able to reach the U.S. market at the end of 2020 or beginning of 2021.

The Times of Israel reported that Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, said that the vaccine had been used on 45 volunteers in March; none of the volunteers suffered from any serious side effects. Moderna learned on May 18 that eight of the volunteers who received two doses of the vaccine developed more antibodies than seen in people who recovered from the virus.

“Today we are showing that it actually works,” Zaks told the Israeli Channel 12 television station, adding that “by about the end of the year, the start of next year, there’s a reasonable likelihood that we’ll see this vaccine on the market, at least on the American market.”

Moderna soon will start its Phase 2 trial on 600 people on an unspecified date and will begin its Phase 3 trial on 1,000 people in July.

Also on May 18, the Israeli Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), which the Israeli Defense Ministry runs, finished testing its vaccine on rodents. According to the Times of Israel, the IIBR soon will move toward testing on other animals before human testing. The institute’s vaccine is expected to be ready for human use in a year.

Additionally, Israel’s Galilee Research Institute is in the final stages of developing its vaccine and Tel Aviv University professor Jonathan Gershoni obtained a U.S. patent for his vaccine on April 19. There are at least 100 vaccines that are being developed throughout the world.

As of this writing, there are 16,643 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 276 deaths from the virus in Israel.