I have recommended reading Derek Lowe, who blogs at Science Magazine on epidemiology, virology, vaccine development, and other subjects touching on the pandemic.

His piece today is a survey of where the effort to develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 stands at this point in time. He profiles 11 candidate vaccines in various stages of testing, none later than Phase 2. Most (not all) have published data in the scientific literature giving some indication of how the candidate vaccine is progressing.

There is no leader in this pack. It’s far too early to be keeping score, and as Lowe frequently points out, only 10% of drugs that enter Phase 1 get as far as applying for FDA approval (usually years or decades later).

Here are the 11 trials, in the order Lowe gives them, which does not imply anything about quality or likelihood to work out or position in any kind of horse race.

• CanSino’s Ad5-nCoV (viral vector using adenovirus-5; in Phase 1)
• Oxford-AstraZeneca’s ChAdOx1-nCov19
• Moderna’s mRNA1273
• BioNTech and Pfizer
• Sinovac’s PiCoVacc
• The Wuhan Institute For Biological Products / Sinopharm (in Phase 2)
• Inovio’s INO-4800
• Johnson & Johnson (Janssen)
• Sanofi / GSK
• Novavax
• Merck

Please go read Lowe’s blog post if the details interest you.

A postscript: Lowe has this advice for those keen to invest their money in order to win big on the company that eventually produces a vaccine: