Novavax, Inc. (Nasdaq: NVAX) has announced that it has submitted a request to the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for NVX-CoV2373, its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate for immunization of individuals 18 year of age and older against SARS-CoV-2.
The request for EUA is based on the totality of pre-clinical, clinical and manufacturing-related (CMC) data provided to the agency, including results of two large pivotal clinical trials that demonstrated an overall efficacy of approximately 90 percent and a reassuring safety profile.
“We’re extremely proud of the work of our teams and we look forward to FDA’s review of our EUA request. We believe our vaccine offers a differentiated option built on a well-understood protein-based vaccine platform that can be an alternative to the portfolio of available vaccines to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Stanley C. Erck, President and Chief Executive Officer, Novavax. “I’d like to also extend our thanks for the support of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Defense for their partnership leading up to today’s milestone of EUA request submission.”
Novavax conducted two pivotal Phase 3 clinical trials:
- PREVENT-19 which enrolled approximately 30,000 participants in the U.S. and Mexico and published results in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and
- A trial with almost 15,000 participants in the U.K. which was also published in NEJM.
In both trials, the vaccine demonstrated efficacy with a reassuring safety profile. Serious and severe adverse events were low in number and balanced between vaccine and placebo groups. The most common adverse reactions observed during clinical studies (frequency category of very common ≥1/10) were headache, nausea or vomiting, myalgia, arthralgia, injection site tenderness/pain, fatigue, and malaise. Novavax will continue to collect and analyze real-world data, including the monitoring of safety and the evaluation of variants, as the vaccine is distributed in authorized markets. As part of the PREVENT-19 trial, a booster study is ongoing to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a third does of the vaccine, as well as a study in adolescents aged 12-17.
NVX-CoV2373 has been granted conditional authorization by multiple regulatory agencies worldwide, including the European Commission, and emergency use listing (EUL) from the World Health Organization (WHO), with additional filings currently under review.
