Being that they are saying 12 to 18 months for a vaccine that’s not going out on a limb. The only way it happens earlier is if they come up with a really , (game changer) treatment. That’s the only hope for 2020
For the most part, this is probably true. Speaking as a retired executive in the Biotech/Life Sciences industry, you kind of nailed it. This is almost 50 years of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology talking plus decades of commercial responsibility. I understand FDA clinical trials to a pretty extensive degree.
There are potential game changer technologies out there...if they work. Life Science is based around game changing but whether it happens this time is too soon to tell. There are things/technologies in development that have promise but there are also a few that have been around for quite awhile (in principle) and have never been successful...yet.
My (Captain Obvious) personal belief is that our best short term hope is for a treatment and not a vaccine. I won't go into the specifics of FDA trials but the high level issue is efficacy (does it work, how well, and as a corollary, does it work better than what is already out there) and safety (what are the side effects...everything has side effects...how prevalent are they, and how serious are they). I could talk at length about that but I won't. This is a sports board.
OK, as it pertains to treatments you have some choices on fast-tracking certain things in clinical trials (and by "you" I mean the FDA). Keep in mind that trials take time (you can't always rush Biology), usually a LOT of time, and in many cases it takes additional time to manufacture the treatment to scale...plus the time in development up front. The FDA CAN fast track molecules/and or treatments for patients who otherwise would die anyway. This happens with cancer treatments occasionally. Maybe there is a 20% response rate plus a host of potential nasty side effects in Phase II clinical trials but for a patient who is dying what choice do they have? The flip side is that maybe a therapy works (sort of) and has not shown a lot of serious side effects. There is the POTENTIAL to fast track that as well or at least rapidly expand the trial.
The Golden Goose is a treatment that seems to work well and is, surprisingly, remarkably safe. That is your prototype fast track candidate in a global emergency. We all pray for that.
For vaccines, the whole issue is different. While treatments are geared toward sick patients, vaccines go into a healthy population. In paragraph 3 above I mentioned safety. This becomes a significant issue with a vaccine; the whole "first, do no harm" thing that doesn't actually appear in the original Hippocratic Oath but is generally accepted by physicians as well as scientists.
If the vaccine causes its own really significant issues, forget it getting fast-tracked (I am going to stay out of political issues as it potentially pertains here). If it doesn't work to a significant degree, that of course is another issue. Even if it works, there is the scale-up issue as it pertains to making enough doses for a large population. That takes time and potentially a lot of time.
I read recently where someone speculated that we would get eventually ID cards verifying that we tested negative for Covid -19 and had antibodies and who is to say that couldn't happen if we wanted to enter large events. I mean, I spent the evening watching SNL audition videos on YouTube and if you had asked me 4 months ago what I would be doing, that activity would have ranked somewhere below "inviting a door-to-door evangelist in to listen to what they had to say." What I am trying to say is that it is a different world for awhile. But you already knew that.
So not to ramble too much further, treatments and testing are the key issue to get sports and, more importantly, "life" back to normal. A vaccine will likely come later and we all pray that it comes at all.
