The German company BioNTech has entered into collaborations with Pfizer, based in New York, and the Chinese drug maker Fosun Pharma to develop their mRNA vaccine. In July, they posted preliminary results from their Phase I/II trials in the United States and Germany. They found that the volunteers produced antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, as well as immune cells called T cells that respond to the virus. Some volunteers experienced moderate side effects such as sleep disturbances and sore arms.

The company expects to start Phase III trials by the end of July. On July 22, the Trump administration awarded a $1.9 billion contract for 100 million doses to be delivered by December and the option to acquire 500 million more doses. If approved, Pfizer said they expect to manufacture over 1.3 billion doses of their vaccine by the end of 2021.

A vaccine in development by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford is based on a chimpanzee adenovirus called ChAdOx1. Their Phase I/II trial, reported on July 20 in the journal Lancet, found that the vaccine was safe, causing no severe side effects. It raised antibodies against the coronavirus as well as other immune defenses. The vaccine is now in a Phase II/III trial in England, as well as Phase III trials in Brazil and South Africa. The project may deliver emergency vaccines by October. AstraZeneca has said their total manufacturing capacity for the vaccine, if approved, stands at two billion doses.

DKSH = 'AstraZeneca + Pfizer