Next-generation COVID-19 shots will be cheaper and better, industry officials say

Vaccines 2.0: Next-generation COVID-19 shots will be cheaper, easier to deliver and protect against more viruses, industry leaders say Drug companies work to improve COVID-19 vaccines to fight variants of the coronavirus and other viruses and make them easier to distribute. Karen Weintraub USA TODAY

The COVID-19 vaccines are among the best ever created. They're safe and more than 90% effective at preventing any disease – even more so at blocking serious illness and death.

Drug companies are trying to make them even better.

Some shots will be more effective against certain variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Others aim to cover several types of severe respiratory viruses, including the first SARS, which caused outbreaks from 2002 to 2004, or even all viruses in the larger coronavirus family. 

Companies are testing vaccines that won't need to be kept cold, won't require two shots, will have fewer side effects, can be produced more efficiently and can be delivered without needles to make them easier to provide in rural areas and the developing world.

"There's a long history within vaccinology of second-generation vaccines being multiply improved over first-generation vaccines. That's just the way things go," said Scot Roberts, chief scientific officer of Altimmune, a biotech company based in Gaithersburg, Maryland, that is developing an inhaled vaccine.

None of these second-generation COVID-19 vaccines will be ready until at least this summer, and many, including Altimmune's, not until early next year at the soonest. No single vaccine will have all the desired attributes, experts said.

Potentially every one of Earth's nearly 8 billion inhabitants will need one or two initial doses and possibly boosters, so there's plenty of room for different approaches, experts said. ...

The jury is still out on how long the current vaccines will last – or whether we'll need boosters, said Scott Hensley, a viral immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. "Time will tell," he said.

Most companies investing in COVID-19 vaccines are presuming – even banking on the idea – that regular boosters will be necessary. ...