Move over, COVID: Shots to stop respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are providing the new must-watch trial data on Twitter as healthcare influencers on the social media platform talk up the latest readout from Pfizer. “Positive conversations among Twitter influencers around ‘RSV Vaccine’ shot up dramatically,” the Social Media Analytics Platform of GlobalData, a healthcare analytics firm, noted in a report out this week.
During the early, pre-vaccine stages of the pandemic, Twitter watched with bated breath as the likes of Pfizer, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca dropped data about their experimental COVID shots to see whether we had a chance of getting out of lockdowns and back to normal.
But while COVID was an unexpected shock that came from nowhere and swiftly spread across the world, there is another serious respiratory infection that has been quietly hospitalizing and killing certain patient populations for decades and with no vaccine to stop its spread. That virus is RSV, which is nothing more than a common cold in most healthy adults but severe and deadly in the very young, the elderly and the immunocompromised.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that there are up to 120,000 hospitalizations among adults 65 years and older in the U.S. each year and up to 10,000 deaths. And among children under 5, the CDC says that there are around 58,000 annual hospitalizations and 100 to 300 deaths.
We know about COVID and we know about the flu and the potential severity of both, but RSV can be overlooked as just a common cold. Those CDC numbers, however, show just how dangerous it can be.
So, when Pfizer dropped new RSV vaccine data this week from its phase 3 study in a maternal setting, healthcare Twitter went into overdrive. Influencers are positive on the news, said Smitarani Tripathy, social media analyst at GlobalData, noting "they are of the opinion that the RSV vaccine will offer maternal protection and reduce the risk of infection in infants against one of the deadliest respiratory viruses.”
Some of those quick reviews of Pfizer's data press release that GlobalData highlighted include: “Great news: good results for the RSV vaccine offering maternal protection *and* to the infant in their first three months,” said Zeynep Tufekci, Ph.D., professor at Columbia University in the New York City, in a tweet.
“The trial in the elderly has recently readout, as well. Great results there, too. RSV has long been a great threat—especially to young kids and the elderly,” Tufekci added.
“Whoa,” said Derek Thompson, writer at The Atlantic, in a tweet. “Pfizer reporting positive data from Phase 3 trials of RSV vaccines for mothers—which reduces severe disease in infants. This winter has been one of the worst RSV breakouts in years. Approval would be a game-changer and a life-saver.”
The data from Pfizer were, however, a mixed bag. The New York-based Big Pharma this week halted its pivotal trial early for efficacy, which will allow Pfizer to file for approval by the end of the year.
But the study only met one of its two primary endpoints. At the preplanned interim efficacy analysis, Pfizer linked the administration of its bivalent RSV prefusion vaccine candidate RSVpreF, also known as PF-06928316, during pregnancy to a significant reduction in the rate of severe medically attended lower respiratory tract illness (MA-LRTI) in newborns.
The efficacy against severe MA-LRTI was 81.8% through the first 90 days of life, but it fell to 69.4% over the six-month follow-up period. The data meant the study met one of its co-primary endpoints.
However, the trial came up short against the second co-primary endpoint, which looked at the effect of RSVpreF on the rate of all MA-LRTI severities.
While Twitter influencers can be positive about data, this shows that it is not always the best way of digesting readouts.
Pfizer is the only company that has an RSV vaccine in development for both infants—given to pregnant mothers to confer immunity on birth—and in older adults over 65.
GSK is also in the game, gaining a priority review this week from the FDA. It is set for an FDA decision next May. The company is, however, only seeking approval—at least for now—in those 60 years and older. It had been working on a maternal vaccine, but a safety signal made the U.K. Big Pharma drop plans to inoculate mothers.
AstraZeneca and Sanofi, meanwhile, are developing a long-acting antibody designed for infants to protect against RSV disease from birth through their first RSV season with a single dose.
Monoclonal antibodies do not work as vaccines, as they do not require the activation of the immune system to help direct protection against the disease. AstraZeneca and Sanofi expect FDA submission acceptance in the fourth quarter. This will be the main competitor for Pfizer should the vaccine nab U.S. approval.