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International COVID-19 vaccine trial opens in West Oxfordshire

Hundreds of Oxfordshire volunteers are joining a leading phase three COVID-19 vaccine study in the county, as researchers around the world continue to work to secure a range of vaccines to help tackle coronavirus.

The latest study from The Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will test the safety and effectiveness of their two-dose regimen vaccine candidate.

Volunteers from a variety of age groups and backgrounds, including those registered to be contacted about vaccine studies through the NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry, are beginning to take part with 200 at Windrush Medical Practice, Witney and a further 200 at Eynsham Medical Group, Eynsham.

They are among sites across the UK including Southampton, Bristol, Cardiff, London, Leicester, Sheffield, Manchester, Dundee and Belfast. Recruitment will complete in March 2021 and the study will last for 12 months. The study will recruit up to 30,000 people worldwide.

To date, over 350,000 people, including 5,550 in Oxfordshire, have signed up to the NHS Covid-19 Vaccines Research Registry (www.nhs.uk/researchcontact) to take part in vital coronavirus vaccine studies. 

The first phase three study to call on Oxfordshire volunteers from the vaccine registry launched last month. More than 460 people have taken part in a study to test the safety and effectiveness of a vaccine developed by US biotechnology company Novavax at Oxford’s Warneford Hospital, managed by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust. The study will recruit 15,000 people from across the UK.

With a range of vaccine types needed to ensure people across the UK have access to one that works for as many people as possible, researchers are calling for volunteers to continue to sign up to take part in clinical studies. 

With several more phase three studies for potential vaccine studies expected to start over the next six months, researchers are highlighting the need for volunteers from across the UK to continue to join the fight against coronavirus. 

In particular the NHS Covid-19 registry needs volunteers who are most vulnerable to the effects of coronavirus, including frontline health and social care workers and people from Black, Asian and ethnic minority backgrounds.

Dr Ian Binnian, a GP partner at Eynsham Medical Group, said: 

“We are very grateful to our local population for putting themselves forward to this important vaccine trial. 

“At Eynsham Medical Group we are honoured to be using our years of research experience to contribute towards the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.”  

Dr Nick Thomas, Principal GP at Windrush Medical Practice said:

“We are both excited and privileged to be the only GP surgeries in the UK for this vital trial and grateful to the NIHR for its fantastic assistance. 

“The support of patients at our practices is testament to the key relationship general practitioners have with their patients.  Furthermore this shows the strength of GP practices and the vital role they play within the pandemic.”

Business Secretary, Alok Sharma, said:

“The start of further clinical trials in the UK is yet another step forward in the race to discover a safe and effective vaccine, and comes alongside recent news that we could be on the cusp of the first major breakthrough since the pandemic began.

“While we are optimistic with the progress being made, there are no guarantees and it is possible there will be no one-size-fits-all vaccine. That is why it is absolutely vital that while our scientists are cracking on with the job, we continue to follow the guidance to control the virus, protect the NHS and save lives.”

The UK government has developed a portfolio of six different vaccine candidates and secured access to 350 million doses to date. Of this, an agreement has been made in principle to include 30 million doses of the Janssen vaccine will be made available to the UK if it is safe and effective.

Chair of the Government’s Vaccine Taskforce, Kate Bingham said: 

“The recent news about progress on the search for a vaccine is enormously exciting for the whole world, but we must not take our focus off continuing the important research to work out which vaccines work best for different people to provide long lasting, effective protection against Covid-19.

“Many vaccines are needed both here in the UK, and globally, to ensure we can provide a safe and effective vaccine for the whole population. That is why the launch of this trial to establish the safety, effectiveness, and very importantly the durability, of the Janssen vaccine is so significant, and I would continue to encourage people to sign up and take part in vaccine trials. 

By co-funding this study we are helping generate data for future regulatory submissions internationally as well as for the UK." 

Paul Stoffels, M.D., Vice Chairman of the Executive Committee and Chief Scientific Officer, Johnson & Johnson said:

“We are delighted to be initiating our global Phase 3 trial in the UK to study the safety and efficacy of a two-dose regimen of our investigational COVID-19 vaccine candidate. This collaboration with UK researchers and the NIHR demonstrates our continued commitment to working together with partners around the world, and marks another positive step forward as we strive to find solutions to this global health crisis.”

The UK public can support the national effort to speed up vaccine research and receive more information about volunteering for clinical studies by visiting www.nhs.uk/researchcontact to join the NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry.

The Registry was launched by the government in partnership with the NIHR, NHS Digital, the Scottish and Welsh governments and the Northern Ireland Executive in July. It aims to help create a database of people who consent to be contacted by the NHS to take part in clinical studies, to help speed up the development of a safe and effective vaccine.

Although results from other vaccines are significant steps forward, the vaccines have not yet been approved for use in the UK yet and clinical trials into a number of other COVID-19 vaccines will continue.

Different vaccines work in different ways and we still need to collect important information about which vaccines work best, and are best for different groups of people, and on exactly how effective they are at, for example, preventing severe infection, preventing infection as a whole, preventing transmission etc. We also need information on matters such as the best way to use vaccines, the number of doses, and to check long term that there are no safety concerns.