Government must invest more in RNA vaccine technology, says scientist behind UK’s second Covid vaccine

The scientist behind one of the two Covid vaccines developed in the UK has called on the government to invest more money in the groundbreaking technology platform used in his jab.

Whereas the Oxford vaccine has been approved and administered throughout the world to protect against Covid-19, the jab designed at Imperial College London by immunologist Professor Robin Shattock never progressed further than stage two clinical testing due to the success of the UK’s rapid vaccination programme.

Researchers at Imperial are continuing to develop their vaccine, which uses similar RNA technology to the Pfizer and Moderna jabs, and hope it will one day have applications against new Covid variants, other infectious diseases and even cancer.

The jab has “good potential utility in treating cancer … but that’s very much on a theoretical stage at the moment,” Prof Shattock told The Independent.

However, he believes more investment is needed from the government into RNA vaccine technology to ensure the UK matches the progress that has been made by other countries in advancing the platform.

“This area definitely requires more investment,” he says. “I’m optimistic that this will come, but for the UK to be competitive in this space, it definitely needs more focus and investment than it’s had in the past.

“I hear the right noises coming out of funding agencies and government, but obviously that noise needs to be turned into substance.”

Like the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, made in the US and Germany respectively, the Imperial College jab uses genetic coding called RNA, which instructs human cells to produce the spike protein structure found on the surface of Sars-CoV-2.

Spotting what appear to be foreign invaders within the body, the immune system then springs into action to produce the necessary antibodies and T cells. This leaves behind a strong layer of protection that enables the body to tackle the real infection.

However, the Imperial vaccine is unique in that it uses self-amplifying RNA, which not only encodes the Sars-CoV-2 spike protein but also replicates once injected into humans. “It’s a bit like having a photocopier,” says Prof Shattock. “After amplification, you’ve got thousands of these plans which are then passed around.”

In theory, this means smaller doses will be needed for the Imperial vaccine, thereby reducing costs and allowing manufacturers to make more supplies.

The team is also developing the jab to be stable at refrigerated temperatures. The current RNA vaccines have to be transported and kept in sub-zero conditions, meaning poorer countries are unable to store it due to the expensive technology demands.

“We’re focusing really on making what we think is the future of RNA vaccines, which is to very much focus on low dose and stable approaches,” says Prof Shattock. “The potential advantage is that low dosage. That could give us, for the same production run, many more doses of vaccines to distribute.

“We now need to spend the time and effort, and raise the cash to do that in a very systematic, robust way. In many ways we were kind of knee-jerked into responding really rapidly last year, probably in advance of the technology reaching full readiness.”

Phase one and phase two trials for the vaccine were launched last summer amid the global race to develop an effective Covid-19 jab.

Some 400 volunteers, aged between 18 and 75, were injected with two doses of the vaccine over a four-week period.

It was hoped that the vaccine would progress to its phase-three trial at the beginning of 2021 before securing approval in the summer. However, Prof Shattock said his team will now be taking their time to develop the vaccine and ensure they get it right.

“Moderna and BioNTech had spent 10 years practising the art and doing several clinical trials to get to the stage where they had a winner,” he says. “We haven’t had that luxury.

“I’m not assuming it’s going to take 10 years but we’re in that stage where conventional RNA works, we’ve got a good understanding and window into how this new technology works in humans.

“We recognise that it still needs improvements, but we can see a pathway to make those improvements over the next couple of years.”

Prof Shattock is hopeful that, if his team gets the funding to test out these modifications on humans, the vaccine will be available for use against new Covid variants within the next two years.