Icon partners with BARDA on next generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate trial

Icon announced that it is partnering with the U.S. Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, part of the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, to execute a clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of next generation COVID-19 vaccine candidates. Next generation COVID-19 vaccines could have the potential to expand the breadth of coverage against existing and future variants of the virus, extend the duration of protection, and offer better protection in the prevention of illness and transmission over the current state of vaccine technologies. Against this backdrop, the Government & Public Health Solutions team at Icon will execute a Phase 2b clinical trial to assess the relative efficacy of a next generation COVID-19 vaccine compared to currently approved/authorized COVID-19 vaccines in the prevention of symptomatic, PCR confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection. The trial will involve 10,000 subjects, expected to be enrolled over a six-month period. BARDA will select the vaccine candidate to be investigated in this trial, thereby accelerating the start of the Phase 2b clinical trial to support in benchmarking its efficacy against existing vaccines.