Instead of holding out for today’s popular vaccines, some researchers hope that those in clinical trials will be easier to license and make in the global south. At the top of the list are protein-subunit vaccines, in which peptides matching those from SARS-CoV-2 teach the immune system to recognize the virus and fight it off. Researchers say the benefit of such vaccines is that vats of yeast or insect cells can churn out huge quantities of peptides, making the vaccines scalable. They add that many companies are familiar with the process because they produce vaccines for other diseases and recombinant drugs in a similar fashion.
One of these is a product from Biological E, which licensed the technology from Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, Texas. Biological E’s vaccine is currently in phase 3 clinical trials in India, and Datla expects it to be authorized by the Indian government by November and the WHO in January. Prashant Yadav, a health-care supply-chain specialist at the Center for Global Development in Washington DC, argues that it’s worth waiting to see whether this type of vaccine is effective, because transferring the technology and scaling up production might be simpler than moving the needle with other companies. “If the protein-subunit vaccines work well, I’d put my money there,” says Yadav.