Spanish COVID-19 vaccine may hit market by early 2022

By Alyssa McMurtry

OVIEDO, Spain (AA) – A new vaccine developed in Spain against COVID-19 could hit the market by early 2022, the country’s science minister said on Thursday.

On Wednesday, Spanish regulators gave the Catalan pharmaceutical company HIPRA the green light to begin clinical trials.

“This vaccine aims to improve on what we already have. This vaccine was designed taking the different coronavirus variants into account, the pre-clinical results were very good and it does not need to be frozen, which facilitates logistics,” Science Minister Diana Morant told Spain’s public broadcaster.

HIPRA said it could produce up to 400 million doses of the vaccine in 2022 and 1.2 billion in 2023.

This vaccine, to be produced in October, is based on two recombinant proteins that correspond to the Alpha and Beta variants of the virus.

The approach is similar to the Novavax and Sanofi vaccines, which have yet to receive regulatory approval.

The first phase of the clinical trial will test the safety of the vaccines by giving volunteers a jab of the HIPRA vaccines and comparing their reactions to a control group that will receive either Pfizer or Moderna jabs.

HIPRA has focused on veterinary medicine throughout its history, launching 22 animal vaccines over the last decade.

“Viruses that affect animals and humans have great biological similarities, so our know-how and experience in epidemiology provide high added value,” says the company on its website.