The head of Australia's medicines regulator says talks are progressing on securing a third vaccine, produced by Novovax, to tackle COVID-19.
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Therapeutic Goods Administration boss John Skerritt said there were "very promising early results" in trials of the Novovax vaccine.
However, Professor Skerritt said the clinical trials had not yet been completed and the company needed to establish large-scale manufacturing arrangements.
"I think that we probably are still, sadly, a couple of months away - June - before we will get the Novavax data," he told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
"We talk to them regularly and I was talking to them yesterday and we are talking with them at a big meeting on Thursday.
"And we are obviously trying to hurry them up but clearly you can't make things like clinical trials go faster."
Australia has an order for 51 million doses of the Novavax vaccine, a two-dose protein vaccine expected to be produced in Europe.
Health Minister Greg Hunt said as for other types of vaccine, the government continued to follow the advice of scientific and technical advisers.
But Mr Hunt said Australia already had deals in place for 170 million vaccine doses, sourced from Pfizer and AstraZeneca.
Australian Associated Press
