The Philip DeFranco Show - PDS 3.20 What's REALLY Happening With Coronavirus Vaccines, Possible “Cures”, Dr. Fauci, & More...

Episode Date: March 20, 2020

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Sup you beautiful bastards, hope you've had a fantastic Friday, which is a thing I have not said for a very long time. Because I hate Fridays, no. In case you're wondering why you got this video, because you missed my Monday announcement. Like I said, Monday, especially as we're all dealing with this coronavirus situation, we've got a new schedule. So you know, an uncertain future, but silver lining, more of my dumb face and voice. But today, while I have you, I wanted to cover something that I've gotten a lot of questions about, and that is a vaccine for the coronavirus. So far, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved any vaccine for the virus

known as SARS-CoV-2. And so, you know, you have a lot of people asking, how far away is a vaccine? Why does it take so long? What does it look like? And of course, who is making it? Okay, so first thing to note, there are tons of different vaccines in the works

around the world right now. And each of these groups is racing to have their vaccine safe and ready as soon as possible. And if it was up to President Donald Trump, we would have one ready by November. But that appears to be impossible. Right, and it's not just me saying that. I haven't been secretly a vaccine expert this entire time. Surprise. It's health officials. They currently believe that it's going to take about a year and a half to put any vaccine on the market. Though, there are a handful of optimistic researchers hoping to have something ready in a year.

You said recently that you could have some kind of vaccine within a year or so. How do you speed up that timeline and how do you fix the problem you said you have, which is finding a manufacturer? Right. Well, first of all, Margaret, that one year timeline would be the world's indoor record of ever getting a vaccine out, at least to be able to early deploy. You can't do any better than that. If you go any faster, you'd be cutting dangerous corners. While that may seem like a long time away, the development of several COVID-19 vaccines

are actually moving at record speed. All right, but let's talk about one of the vaccines shooting to be the first on the market. Back in January, we saw the drug developer, Moderna, partner with the National Institutes of Health. Reportedly, researchers there were working nights and weekends to develop the first version of this vaccine. And look, that development happened fast because by the end of the month,

Moderna had already received a grant from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to help them manufacture a batch of that drug big enough to be used in clinical trials. And then, late last month, the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute received approval from the NIH to begin clinical trials of that vaccine in Seattle. Trials began this past Monday and involved 45 healthy participants between the ages of 18 and 55. So this part is known as a phase one trial. And according to Kaiser, this phase will last about 14 months because participants will need

to attend 11 in-person visits. During that time, each person will be randomly split into one of three different groups, with each group then receiving a different dosage of the vaccine. With those 11 visits, they're getting two vaccinations and the other nine visits are initial screening, as well as follow-up visits.

And in this phase, researchers will specifically be testing, quote, the safety of various doses and whether those doses produce an immune response. Right, and when they say produce an immune response here, what they're saying is, is this potential vaccine going to produce antibodies? But notably here, in this 14-month phase, it doesn't actually study the effectiveness of the vaccine

in preventing coronavirus infection. That work doesn't actually come until phase two, which we'll talk about in a minute. But before we get there, I wanna talk about what this vaccine looks like, because it's actually a lot different than the types of vaccines that we're used to getting. So the first thing you gotta know is this vaccine

doesn't include any live form of the virus, though that is a common form of vaccine. You see it with vaccines for diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, and also for chickenpox, those usually containing a weakened version of the virus. To keep it really simple, it can infect you and replicate, but all the harmful parts are removed, so it can't actually hurt you. And so the way that this works is your body's immune system will then clear the virus out and know how to get rid of it again in case you get exposed to the actual virus later. Now the coronavirus vaccine is also not what's known as an inactivated or killed vaccine.

Those, along with live vaccines, are the other most common type of vaccine. With killed vaccines, you have the likes of the rabies vaccine, also the vaccines for hepatitis A, polio, and cholera. So the thing with these vaccines is that they cannot replicate, so your antibodies just attack what they're given. So kind of similar to live vaccines

in that your antibodies are being stimulated to attack a specific virus, but killed vaccines are generally considered weaker. So they're also usually the vaccines where you're gonna need booster shots, right? Okay, so at this point you might be like, "'Phil, okay, great, and now I know what it's not." Which I would say, shut up, I'm trying to educate you

and also give you some information that you can repeat and sound smarter with later. Right, so the coronavirus vaccine, it's not a live vaccine, it's not a killed vaccine, it's what's known as an mRNA vaccine. And so, you know, here we're gonna be talking about virology, things are gonna be naturally complicated, though, spoiler alert, I am actually an expert virologist.

I'm not, I lied to you just now. But, to kind of break it down on a basic level, this coronavirus is wrapped up in a capsule. On the surface of that capsule is what's known as a spike protein, and that spike protein is really important here because the coronaviruses use it to latch onto human cells. But, because it's on the surface,

it's also the first thing antibodies are going to recognize and latch onto. Now the other important thing to realize here is that mRNA makes proteins, including that spike protein. And now what they've made is a vaccine that includes the mRNA coding for that spike protein. And so essentially the idea here is that if you inject this mRNA vaccine into your deltoid muscles,

the mRNA will then use machinery inside your cells to make spike proteins. Right, and so what happens next is similar to how I described those live and kill vaccines a minute ago. In theory, your antibodies will then use machinery inside your cells to make spike proteins. Right, and so what happens next is similar to how I described those live and kill vaccines a minute ago. In theory, your antibodies will then attack and remember that spike protein. So the idea would be you get this vaccine

and if you're exposed to COVID-19, your immune system should already be able to recognize those spike proteins on its surface and attack it. And something that was really interesting is the entire reason the development of this vaccine was able to move so quickly is because these researchers were able to use genetic sequences

that Chinese doctors uploaded to a database really just days after the virus was discovered. So instead of having to rely on physical samples of the virus, Moderna was able to study the virus and the spike proteins coding. Which is also why you saw Moderna getting this grant and why we're not talking about a traditional live

or killed vaccine. Right, and so according to the NIH National Library of Medicine, researchers expect this phase of the trial to be completed by June 1st of next year. Okay, so that is phase one, which brings us to... Do you know what phase is next? Think hard. That's right, phase two.

Great job! And in phase two, as long as everything has been successful, this vaccine will then be tested in even bigger pools of participants. Remember, that first phase was only 45 people, so now we're talking about somewhere in the hundreds, though it's still way too early to know exactly how many people they're going to try to test.

Also during phase two, scientists will continue to further look at the safety of this drug, but the main goal here is to see if the vaccine is going to be effective against the coronavirus. Basically, does it stimulate an accurate immune response? Now reportedly, Moderna is already actively preparing for a potential phase two, with the company possibly starting to manufacture material for that phase

in as little as a few months. And if this phase is successful, that vaccine will then move into phase three of the clinical trial. There it will be tested with even more people. Researchers will also look at things like side effects. They'll also compare it to some of the current treatments that we have right now, with the big question being, is this better than what's already available?

Which, of course right now we're talking about a situation where there is no other vaccine. But, of course, they're not the only one in this race. In fact, there are no lack of vaccines being developed. I mean, actually, CEPI, the organization that gave Moderna its grant, also gave out two others. One of those to a lab at the University of Queensland in Australia, and there, that lab included a stabilized

and isolated synthetic form of the spike protein directly in its vaccine. The idea there is that using the actual protein will provoke a strong and accurate immune response. And they are actually planning to begin clinical trials by this summer. There's also another vaccine being developed by a company called Inovio,

which has also gotten a grant from CEPI. Additionally, you have companies like Johnson & Johnson's Janssen, Sanofi, Pfizer, the Biotech CureVac, also other vaccines in development in China, Canada, England, and other countries. But the key here is the development in the United States is currently the first to enter trials. Which actually on the note of record speed,

I wanted to dive a little deeper into that. For example, you look back to the SARS outbreak that started in 2002. It took 20 months to get the vaccine to phase one trials. And then with Zika, which is the fastest we've ever seen a virus go from outbreak to phase one clinical trials, that still took seven months

to get a vaccine ready for testing. But then you compare that to here, where researchers finished working on this potential Moderna vaccine on January 13th. So just two days after those Chinese scientists uploaded the coronavirus sequence and it's already being tested on people. That is unprecedented.

All right, so one and a half years, while it may sound like an incredibly long time, it is wild that this is even possible. But there's a lot of them and they're always big. Even if everything goes according to the best of Moderna's plans or anyone else's plans, one and a half years is still a long, long time for people living in the now.

The world feels like it's changing, the weight of concern increasing. I mean, going back to that Zika example, that epidemic had pretty much already died down by the time that the vaccine was approved for clinical trials. Or SARS, that died down after four months and whole companies just abandoned their vaccines afterwards. Which actually brings me to my next point, money. Money, money, money. Sweet, sweet, money, money. And here's the thing. You have these outbreaks, but usually they don't last all that long, which, yes, is definitely, definitely a good thing. Do not get me wrong there,

but that also means that no one's really gonna be buying your vaccine after it's over. As the writer for Wired put it, "'No one wants to make a product "'that's not going to be used.'" Though, with COVID-19, it does appear that this situation could end up being different than those previous outbreaks. I mean, you have some health officials worrying

that this could be seasonal, and the federal government is also working under the assumption this pandemic could last 18 months or longer. You know, making vaccines is cost intensive. In fact, so much so that the vaccine business is dominated by just four companies, Pfizer, Merck, GSK, and Sanofi. And yes, earlier I did mention that both Pfizer and Sanofi

are making vaccines. Reportedly, GSK has also started development on one as well. The Washington Post also reporting that Merck is pursuing either a vaccine or medication. Actually, I wanna take a second to focus on Merck for a second. So back with the Ebola epidemic, Merck started developing a vaccine.

That vaccine was approved and put on the market last year, but by then the crisis was already over. All right, so Zika, SARS, Ebola, stuff like this keeps happening. Companies are called to disrupt their profit-seeking operations to develop a vaccine for an outbreak. That vaccine then fades,

and many times these companies are left in the red. And that is where this big circle comes back around to CEPI. In a 2018 interview, CEPI CEO Richard Hatchett said that the drug makers, quote, "'Have very clearly articulated the current way of approaching this. To call them during an emergency and demand that they do this

and that they reallocate resources to disrupt their daily operations in order to respond to these events is completely unsustainable. But that's also a pretty glaring catch-22 because you need these types of companies to develop emergency response vaccines. Right, so in 2017, in response to the way

that the Ebola epidemic was handled, CEPI was formed as a private-public partnership. The idea being that it could award grants for swift vaccine development targeting emerging threats that the pharmaceutical industry might otherwise ignore. Notably, it was actually co-founded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust, with the Gateses pumping in $100 million.

Also, you had countries like Japan, Norway, Germany, India, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the UK, though notably not the United States. However, back in 2006, the United States did found BARDA, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and it reportedly has also been streamlining the process for many drug manufacturers. I should also note that vaccines

are not the only solutions being explored now. There are also other drugs that might treat the virus that are currently in phase three of clinical trials. And the biggest name that comes to mind here is remdesivir. It's made by Gilead Sciences, who make antiviral drugs for things like HIV and the flu. And the reason it's already in phase three, which if you don't remember,

we said normally doesn't happen until years into a drug's trial, it's because it was originally developed for Ebola, but it's also in phase three, which if you don't remember, we said normally it doesn't happen until years into a drug's trial. It's because it was originally developed for Ebola, but it's also shown success in animals against other coronaviruses like MERS and SARS. And so now it's being tested on COVID-19 as well. They are set to report their findings next month and the doctors in the United States and Italy

have been approved to test the drug on a small number of patients with severe COVID-19. And here, one patient in Washington even reported recovering after being treated, but one person, that's hardly enough for approval. Yesterday We also saw Trump say that he's pushing for the FDA to approve hydroxychloroquine against COVID-19. Now hydroxychloroquine is antiviral But notably it was developed to treat malaria However, it has shown some success in patients with COVID-19 and it already has market approval

Okay. Now Trump said that it would be made available Almost immediately, but we later saw the FDA kind of scale back Donald Trump's comments, saying to use hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19 patients, you'd need another clinical trial. Saying over the next couple of weeks, we'll have more information that we're really pushing hard to try to accelerate, and that will be a bridge

to other therapies that will take us three to six months to develop. And this is a continuous process. There is no beginning and end. And to reiterate, these are not vaccines. So while solutions like Remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine may help out those who already have COVID-19, it will not stop others from getting it.

But, and once again, they are big and they are many, even Remdesivir brings us back to a central issue. It was developed for an Ebola crisis that has since shifted and they were looking for other ways to use the drug. Otherwise, like manufacturers of vaccines, their work and their money might go down the drain once the crisis ends. All right, which once again, isn't to say

that they should not put in this work, but it does appear like it's a greater reason why groups like CEPI have been set up and need to be set up. And it's funding is one of the reasons we've seen such a fast response from some of these smaller startup biotech companies. And it's a model that could prove to be very, very effective in these moments of crisis.

But yeah, ultimately that brings us to the end of the video. I know this is definitely a different kind of video. If you liked it, let me know. Hit that like button. Hopefully with this one you learned something, you feel more informed, more understanding of the situation that we're dealing with. Also, hey, if you're new here, be sure to subscribe.

We got daily, weekday videos. Also, make sure you have that bell click so you get notifications, because now I may even upload videos over the weekend. But with all that said, of course as always, my name is Philip DeFranco. You've just been filled in I love yo faces, and I'll see you next time. I hope you liked the video Subscribe if you like it