For Novavax, Building Trust Was Key To Improving Diversity

Company Took Lead In Native American Vaccine Study Enrollment

Dec 14 2021

• By Alaric DeArment

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Novavax’s Lisa Dunkle talked to Scrip about the time and effort that went into building trust among Native American communities to encourage participation in its COVID-19 vaccine study.

COVID-19 SARS,Coronaviridae , SARS-CoV, SARSCoV, virus 2020 , MERS-CoV ,chinese virus 2019-nCoV — Novavax relied on building trust to increase diversity in its COVID-19 vaccine trial • Source: Shutterstock

While drug makers are trying to improve the ethnic and racial mix of clinical trial populations, one of the biggest barriers is trust – especially among communities that continue to feel the legacy of mistreatment by the medical system. As Novavax, Inc. worked to improve the diversity of the Phase III PREVENT-19 trial of its COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373, focusing on trust was one of the ways it successfully bolstered enrollment by Native American participants.

Citeline Award Nominee

Scrip is interviewing the companies shortlisted for the inaugural champion of diversity and inclusion in clinical research award, to highlight some of the best practices in this urgent area. Watch for additional interviews to come, and follow the Citeline Awards, to be held 7 April 2022, for more information.

The company enrolled more than 30,000 adults and adolescents into the PREVENT-19 study, which showed 90.4% overall efficacy and 100%...

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