Six Coronavirus Vaccines Under Clinical Trials, WHO Says

The World Health Organization on Thursday said that six novel coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccines are currently seeing clinical trials.

Oxford University was the latest entrant in a list of COVID-19 vaccine candidates published by the WHO, which already included Moderna Inc. MRNA, Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. INO, and China's Sinovac, CanSino Biological Inc., and Beijing Institute of Biological Products.

The WHO said that another 77 coronavirus vaccines were in preclinical stages, including those of Novavax, Inc. NVAX, Vaxart Inc. VXRT, and Universities of Tokyo, Pittsburg, and Hong Kong.

The coronavirus vaccines are being developed at a record pace as more than 2.7 million people have been infected with the virus across the globe, and 190,858 have died, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

White House Coronavirus Task Force lead member Anthony Fauci said that a vaccine could be ready in a record time of 12 to 18 months since the outbreak started. Researchers at Oxford University said their vaccine could be available at a mass scale starting September if it is proved successful in the clinical trials.

Others, including Johnson & Johnson JNJ, have said they could start clinical trials of their vaccines by the end of this year.

Moderna was the first to start clinical trials in the United States in mid-March, and Inovio followed suit earlier this month.