Maryland Biotech Companies At Forefront Of COVID-19 Vaccine Research – CBS Baltimore

BALTIMORE (WJZ) The worldwide race is on to find a COVID-19 vaccine, and Maryland is on the forefront of some of that research.

In the state, researchers at three companies are hard at work trying to create the first COVID-19 vaccine.

Among them is Emergent BioSolutions, a Global Life Sciences company headquartered in Gaithersburg, with facilities in Baltimore.

Senior vice president Syed Husain said the company has partnered with four fellow innovators, including Johnson & Johnson, in an effort to come up with a vaccine.

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Maryland itself is play a significant role where were directly contributing from a developmental and manufacturing standpoint toward these vaccines, Husain said.

The Gaithersburg-based company Novavax announced Tuesday it was getting $1.6 billion in federal money as part of Operation Warp Speed.

Gov. Larry Hogan congratulated the biotech company on Twitter.

Since day one, Ive said Marylands biohealth institutions would lead the charge to develop treatments and vaccines, the governor tweeted.

Novavax said it will use this funding for Phase 3 clinical trials to establish large-scale manufacturing and deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate.

Lastly, the University of Maryland has also started testing experimental COVID-19 vaccines with funding from Pfizer.

No matter what company comes up with a vaccine, Husain said most importantly, it has to be safe and effective.

A timeline will be tied to how quickly a vaccine candidate can progress through the clinic and get regulatory approval.

Some are projecting results by the end of the year, while others think itll be closer to 2021.

Certainly, a lot needs to happen for something in the clinic to ultimately progress to a patient with an approved product, but theres certainly a lot of potential and a lot of activity thats happening in Maryland, Husain said.

For the latest information on coronavirus go to theMaryland Health Departments websiteor call 211. You can find all of WJZs coverage oncoronavirus in Maryland here.

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Maryland Biotech Companies At Forefront Of COVID-19 Vaccine Research - CBS Baltimore