The race for next generation vaccines is steadily heating up now. And this month, we’ve passed a major milestone: The first data suggesting that an already-authorized nextgen vaccine could outperform the BNT/Pfizer vaccine – with its manufacturers ramping up production facilities for potentially wide distribution in the next year or so.

Most vaccines that reach first-in-human trials don’t make it all the way to major regulator approval. The odds improve, though, for those that make it to mid-stage trials (phase 2). On top of that, there’s a lot of variation in effectiveness between vaccines – so a good range of approaches reaching that mid-stage increases the odds of having much better vaccines.

Though it’s not going at the blistering pace of the early pandemic, the scene is encouraging now. The number of next generation vaccines moving past first-in-human trials is into double digits. With another 2 pancoronavirus vaccines starting clinical trials this month, there’s even a handful of vaccines reaching the early stage at least in this tough category. And the body of clinical evidence seems to be growing steadily, too: We’ve been getting at least some results for an average of 2 clinical trials a month for the last 6 months.

It’s still early days in many ways, though. Even for late-stage trials, most of the efficacy data is for signs of immunity only. We don’t know critical things, especially whether or not there will be mucosal vaccines that can make a major – and lasting – impact on getting and transmitting infection in people. But at least it looks as though more durable boosters are on the horizon.

There’s a lot to get to this month for all types of vaccines, including news from clinical trials for 3 vaccines. This update starts with news from Project NextGen, with funding for another mini-efficacy trial for a mucosal vaccine. After that, I have recent results broken down into 3 categories of next-generation Covid vaccines (definitions below).