On July 8, 2020 the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched a new clinical trials network to enrol volunteers for large-scale clinical trials testing a variety of investigational vaccines and monoclonal antibodies intended to protect people from COVID-19.
Called the COVID-19 Prevention Trials Network (COVPN) it was the merging of 4 existing NIAID-funded clinical trials networks – 3 for AIDS plus the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium (IDCRC).
Within a few weeks they were conducting clincal trial for Moderna‘s vaccine.
The NIAID stated that vaccine generated antibodies will be “different” to antibodies generated from natuaral infection with SARS-CoV-2!! Antibody tests approved were only those that detected the nucleocapsid, if they targeted “spike antigens” then the immunized person would return a positive result!
In 2020 COVPN were conducting clinical trials for:
- Moderna’s mRNA-1273 vaccine, The COVE Study™
- Regeneron’s 10933 and 10987 Antibodies, the REGN-COV2 Study
- Eli Lilly’s LY3819253 Antibody, the BLAZE-2 Study
- Pfizer & BioNTech’s BNT162b2 COVID-19 mRNA investigational vaccine
- The ENSEMBLE Study with Janssen’s Ad26.COV2.S Investigational Vaccine
- AstraZeneca Investigational COVID-19 vaccines AZD1222