In 24 hours, two American pharmaceutical groups had to interrupt their clinical trials for their future vaccines against Covid-19. These are the Johnson & Johnson and Eli Lilly laboratories. If security reasons have been mentioned, the laboratories have not yet given the exact nature of these decisions.
Discontinuation of the Johnson & Johnson clinical trial
Monday, September 12, the pharmaceutical group Johnson & Johnson announced the suspension of its clinical trials of its treatment against Covid-19. Begun at the end of September, the vaccine trial was interrupted after the onset of an unexpected illness in one of the participants. In a press release, the pharmaceutical group explains: “ We have temporarily suspended additional dosing in all of our clinical trials of an investigational Covid-19 vaccine, including the entire Phase 3 trial, due to unexplained illness in one participant “.
This announcement marks the closure of online registrations to recruit participants for phase 3 of the trial. In other words, no more participants will receive the vaccine or the placebo until further notice. Until more information is available, the protocol provides for a committee of independent experts to study the data to find out whether the patient’s disease is linked to the vaccine or not. At this time, we still do not know whether this patient received the vaccine or a placebo.
Discontinuation of Eli Lilly’s clinical trial
After the Johnson & Johnson clinical trial, it is the turn of the pharmaceutical group of Eli Lilly, to have to suspend its experimental treatment against Covid-19 relating to hospitalized patients of Covid-19. Decided by the American health regulator, the announcement took place this Tuesday, October 13. A decision that was taken for security reasons but whose exact causes are not yet known. Likewise, Eli Lilly’s press release does not specify whether other trials testing synthetic antibodies are also affected.
What we do know is that the treatment at the Eli Lilly laboratory is similar to the one Donald Trump received after the onset of his symptoms of Covid-19. These are synthetic antibodies injected intravenously, the objective of which is to neutralize the coronavirus as would the immune system.
According to a spokesperson for the group: “ We know that, as a precaution, the independent health monitoring committee of the ACTIV-3 trial recommended a pause in recruitments. […] Lilly supports independent committee’s decision to prudently ensure the safety of patients participating in the trial “.
