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More Candidate COVID-19 Vaccines Expected To Enter WHO’s Global Trial

 
• By Ian Schofield

A new global clinical trial initiative is assessing a number of second-generation candidate vaccines for COVID-19. The Australian medicines regulator has given the go-ahead for an approval application for one of the vaccines, from Taiwan’s Medigen.

medigen vaccine
Medigen's COVID-19 vaccine is among the first selected for a global trial platform • Source: Alamy

An expert panel is assessing whether two more candidate COVID-19 vaccines, from Arcturus and Codagenix, should be added to the global Solidarity Trial Vaccines (STV) initiative, which has been set up to review evidence on promising new vaccines amid concern over the continuing efficacy of existing vaccines faced with virus variants.

Launched in October by the World Organization and the health ministries of Colombia, Mali and the Philippines, the STV already includes two vaccines, from Taiwan’s Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corp and US firm Inovio, with

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