For some, it’s a shot at COVID-19 immunity. For participants already infected with the coronavirus, a second trial offers a chance to receive a still experimental treatment that could reduce the severity and duration of illness.
This week, the first dose of ImmunityBio’s COVID vaccine candidate was administered at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach. Eventually, 35 will be enrolled in this first phase trial.
Dozens of other vaccine candidates are already in trials, and two–from Moderna and Pfizer–are well into the third phase, and expected to have enough data to seek FDA approval before year’s end–and perhaps by mid-November.