6 ms·

I hadn't seen these names before, so: ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 is AstraZeneca BNT162b2 is Pfizer/BioNTech

• deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
• throwawayswede 5y ago
  Both of these look like “cool hacker names” from a movie…
  • _3u10 5y ago
    ChAdOx1 is the guy who gets the girl lol.
    • throwawayswede 5y ago
      Only initially, then he turns out to be a douche.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  • orra 5y ago
    Frankly, I think the names are terrible. Great vaccines and all, but terrible branding.
    • michaelmior 5y ago
      Neither names are really intended to be the "brand" of the vaccine. That said, I don't think Comirnaty is really much better.
      • orra 5y ago
        No, I don't think Comirnaty is any better! I am however relatively partial to Spikevax, aka Moderna: at least Spikevax is easily pronounceable. I suppose you mean the vaccine names are mainly useful for regulatory purposes, because the general population will continue to name the vaccines after the manufacturer or researchers?
        • palae 5y ago
          As a native French speaker, I would say Comirnaty is actually easier to pronounce than Spikevax, and I suspect it might be similar in other Romance languages.
          • orra 5y ago
            Intéressant. Sorry, I was being pretty anglocentric.
            • palae 5y ago
              Pas de problème ;) Now I'm thinking about it, finding a name that is easily pronounced in many languages is probably a fun but not that trivial task.
              • selcuka 5y ago
                CoronaVac (by Sinovac) sounds pretty accent-agnostic.
      • mattkrause 5y ago
        Specifically, ChAdOx1 is the vector, a platform for making vaccines: there are vaccine candidates using it for TB, MERS, Zika, flu, and a bunch of other things (see here: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=ChAdOx1&cntry=&state=&city=&dist= https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?cond=&term=ChAdOx1&cn...) In more normal times, most people outside of R&D would never encounter the name.
        • orra 5y ago
          Exciting that they're using it as a platform to develop other vaccines. But I still maintain the official names are ridiculous. “Vaxzevria” is the trademark used by AstraZeneca in the EU. (As you say, not ChAdOx1.) And yes, the general population end up seeing Vaxzevria, on their vaccine information forms, and online at https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/vaxzevria-previously-covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/vaxzevria-...
          • waterhouse 5y ago
            Someone on Twitter says: "Galaxy brain take: Pfizer intentionally picked a terrible & unpronounceable brand name because it wants people to keep calling it "the Pfizer vaccine"". (I personally will just pronounce it as "Moriarty", that being the closest recognizable name.)
            • mattkrause 5y ago
              That seems....very plausible. For other drugs, an amazing amount of effort is devoted to finding something that a) sounds "promising" but b) without making legally-untenable promises. The name `Viagra`, famously, is supposed to evoke ideas of vigor and Niagra (Falls). Pfizer had some trouble with Champix (varenicline), which some regulators thought was too close to "champion", and so was called Chantix in some markets instead.
    • oezi 5y ago
      Yes, and it was only when the AZ vaccine (Jansen?) showed a trombosis risk that all manufacturers started to fokus on branding their vaccines to potentially distance themselves, or was this a timely coincidence? Why couldn't they just be called Moderna/Pfizer/... Covid Vaccine?
      • angelzen 5y ago
        Same reason we have Intel Pentium Core2 Duo E8400.
      • maxerickson 5y ago
        The use of the brand names came with government approvals.
        • orra 5y ago
          It wasn't a precondition. Compare the approved vaccines now[1] with the archive back in March 2021[2]. [1] https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/treatments-vaccines/covid-19-vaccines https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/publi... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20210305190828/https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/human-regulatory/overview/public-health-threats/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/treatments-vaccines/covid-19-vaccines https://web.archive.org/web/20210305190828/https://www.ema.e...
• tialaramex 5y ago
  Ch = Chimpanzee Ad = Adenovirus Ox = Oxford This is a speed-up that pre-dates the mRNA trick Moderna had been working on, a virus from chimps (so humans aren't immune to it because it wouldn't infect humans normally, yet chimps are similar enough that the virus can get into a human cell) but hollowed out to make whatever you want instead of more copies of itself. You put any payload inside it and it'll re-program the patient's cells to make that for a brief period until the immune system cleans up the mess. This vaccine uses the spike protein as payload to train your immune system.
  • sureglymop 5y ago
    Is it also the case that the human getting vaccinated build up immunity to the carrier virus and thus booster shots might become less effective? Would that be a reason to get a booster shot from something other than AstraZeneca?
  • marton78 5y ago
    The last time I saw chimpanzee research in Oxford, it didn't end well... https://youtu.be/n8FbMY-quW4 https://youtu.be/n8FbMY-quW4