Asked by: Marcus Fysh (Conservative - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what recent assessment he has made of whether any of the covid-19 vaccine candidates for which the Government has provided funding are on track to produce a vaccine that provides immunity that prevents the vaccinated from (a) contracting and (b) spreading that virus.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
Progress is being made at an extraordinary pace to secure a safe and effective vaccine. We monitor trial results on a continuous basis and the trials look to establish different things depending on how they are designed and what they specifically look at. The outcomes of the clinical trials will not be fully known until phase 3 trials have concluded.
Asked by: Marcus Fysh (Conservative - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps (a) his Department and (b) other public bodies (i) have taken and (ii) are planning to take to help ensure that the (A) objective and (B) outcome of covid-19 candidate vaccine trials are preventing (1) covid-19 transmission and (2) serious covid-19 cases and fatalities.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The National Institute for Health Research provides support and critical infrastructure for clinical trials – making the UK well-suited to facilitate clinical trials that are essential to the development of any vaccine.
All vaccines are tested through three phases of clinical trials, to ensure they meet the usual rigorous standards, data must include the results of clinical trials, animal studies, manufacturing and in-process quality controls, consistency in batches production, and testing data. Clinical trials of any vaccine must follow a predefined development pathway, with regulatory oversight provided by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). The MHRA will seek advice from the independent expert advisors on the Commission on Human Medicines and its Expert Advisory Group on the risks and benefits of any vaccine. A vaccine will only be deployed once it has been proved to be safe and effective.
Asked by: Marcus Fysh (Conservative - Yeovil)
Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:
To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what steps (a) his Department and (b) other public bodies are taking to help ensure that emerging covid-19 vaccine candidates (a) research, (b) production and (c) administration capacity is used by vaccine candidates which have the prevention of contraction, transmission and fatal impact of covid-19 within their clinical trial objectives and outcomes for that candidate vaccine.
Answered by Amanda Solloway
The Government is working at pace to secure a safe and effective vaccine for all. To date, we have secured 350 million doses through six different vaccine developers.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) are helping to fund and/or deliver a range of 'rapid response' research to better understand and tackle COVID-19, including research into vaccines, treatments and diagnostic tests. The government has also invested over £230 million in manufacturing facilities, to manufacture a vaccine quickly, if and when a candidate becomes successful. Manufacturers and wholesalers of COVID-19 vaccine candidates must meet the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s (MHRA) standards of good manufacturing practice (GMP) and good distribution practice (GDP). MHRA carries out inspections to check if manufacturing and distribution sites comply with GMP or GDP.