McALLEN — A local clinic is continuing to enroll volunteers for two COVID-19 vaccine studies and seeking volunteers for two new treatment studies.
Centex Studies Inc., which has a location in McAllen, previously recruited patients for a vaccine study for Moderna, the drug company that already released preliminary results.
But Centex is now recruiting patients for a trial studying a drug from AstraZeneca and next week, they will begin enrolling participants for a vaccine from Janssen Pharmaceutica, a company owned by Johnson & Johnson.
“For the AstraZeneca study, we’re seeking 600 volunteers and then for the Janssen, 400 volunteers,” said Joanna Gurrola, clinical research coordinator for Centex.
For the studies, the clinic is seeking different groups of people — some healthy, some with comorbidities, and some geriatric.
“It’s a wide range of groups that they want because they need to test the vaccines on all different groups of people,” said Westly Keating, a physician assistant working with Centex. “The whole point is try to protect the people at the highest risk — the elderly and people with high risk factors like obesity, diabetes, heart failure, things like that.”
The AstraZeneca study is a 2 to 1 ratio, meaning individuals who participate will have a 66% chance of actually getting the vaccine versus a placebo.
Similar to the Moderna study, patients will get a first dose at the beginning of the study and then a second dose of the same substance about a month later.
In addition to the two vaccine studies, the clinic is conducting studies on COVID-19 treatments.
The treatments, both monoclonal antibody treatments, are administered to individuals who were infected with COVID-19 who are monitored to see whether their health improves.
“The point is to see if the medication works and how well it works,” Keating said. “So far there’s already been like a couple thousand patients enrolled in these studies nationwide and the outcome that these patients that are enrolled … they’re all doing very well.”
He said there have been no side effects or adverse events with these medications documented throughout the country.
“The overall endpoint for these studies is to make sure that the symptoms of COVID (don’t) cause the patient to get hospitalized,” Gurrola said.
At minimum, the clinic is seeking to enroll 30 patients for each of the treatment studies.
The two treatment studies are sponsored by two biotechnology companies — Altimmune and Vir Biotechnology.
The Altimmune treatment is administered via IV infusion while the one from Vir Biotechnology is a nasal spray.
Keating added that those interested in the treatment studies can get tested at their clinic to confirm they’re positive for COVID-19.
Both the vaccine and treatment studies are paid.
For more information about the studies, people are urged to call (956) 540-7170.
