Host: The Japanese Pharmacological Society
Name : The 95th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Pharmacological Society
Number : 95
Location : Fukuoka
Date : March 07, 2022 - March 09, 2022
SARS-CoV-2-causing COVID-19, of which outbreak was initially reported from China at the end of 2019, became a large-scale global epidemic in 2020. To cope with COVID-19, a novel type of vaccines has been developed with unprecedented speed and has been very useful in many countries, including Japan, for controlling the severity of this infectious disease. Two items of the coronavirus-modified uridine RNA vaccine, in which mRNA encoding the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein is embedded in lipid nanoparticles (LNP), are currently being marketed in Japan. Each of them has very high efficacy and almost no serious side effects, although fever and fatigue that subside in about 2-3 days are observed. In this symposium, I would like to talk about the characteristics of the mRNA/LNP vaccine, which was generated by combining the best of various sciences and technologies, based on publicly available information. Unlike conventional virus vaccines, the above mRNA/LNP vaccine does not contain any components directly derived from living organisms and is more like a chemical medicine. However, the vaccine is still subject to official verification at the time of lot release. The global standard that must be implemented at the time of lot release of a vaccine is the review of the Summary Lot Protocol (SLP),which summarizes the manufacturing and quality testing records for each lot, to determine whether it conforms to the approved content of the product. The SLP review is also conducted for the mRNA/LNP vaccines by the National Institute of Infectious Diseases.
