A DRUGS giant working to develop a coronavirus vaccine has started human trials.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) which has a factory in Barnard Castle, has teamed up with Clover Pharmaceuticals to create the adjuvanted vaccine.

Clover Pharmaceuticals has announced the initiation of a phase one clinical study evaluating the company’s Covid-19 S-Trimer vaccine (SCB-2019) in combination with GSKs pandemic adjuvant system.

The study follows promising preclinical results which demonstrated the beneficial effect of GSKs pandemic adjuvant for the SCB-2019 vaccine candidate, with high neutralising antibody levels found in multiple animal species.

Preliminary safety and immunity results for the phase one study are expected in August 2020.

GSK said use of an adjuvant is of particular importance in a pandemic situation since it can reduce the amount of protein required per dose, allowing more vaccine doses to be produced and made available to more people.

The pharmaceutical firm has announced several scientific collaborations globally to develop adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccines.

It expects further studies to begin across the range of its collaborations, including with Sanofi, later this year.

Thomas Breuer, chief medical officer, of GSK Vaccines, said: “Our deliberate approach is to combine our proven pandemic adjuvant technology with protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidates from several collaborators.

“We believe this holds the promise to produce vaccines at scale, potentially benefitting billions of people. We are encouraged by the pre-clinical data of this adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine candidate from Clover and look forward to reviewing the data from this first trial.

“If this trial is successful, we hope to be in a position to move into more advanced trials later in the year.”

The phase one clinical trial is a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess safety, reactogenicity, and immunity.