Prognosis
U.K. Prepares for First Tests to Expose People to Virus
- Britain, hVivo, Imperial join in human challenge trial plan
- Agreement involves study to identify doses of virus needed
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The first trials to deliberately infect people with the coronavirus to accelerate the development of vaccines could occur in the U.K. next year as part of an agreement reached by the government.
Britain signed a contract with Open Orphan Plc and its London-based unit, hVivo, that paves the way for human challenge trials, the company said on Tuesday. The plan is to manufacture SARS-Cov-2 and conduct a study to determine how much of the pathogen to expose volunteers to in the trials.