Dear Health Research Council of New Zealand,

I would like to make a request for information relating to the first-in-human safety, reactogenicity and immunogenicity trial of the Covid-19 vaccine ReCOV.

My request is motivated by the public interest and curiosity surrounding this first-of-its-kind study.

I request copies of all recommendations or advice provided by HRC to the Ministry of Health and/or Medsafe upon HRC’s consideration of the application for performing the study.

This should include recommendations or advice for the application which was approved, as well as any earlier applications for the same study that were declined or only given provisional approval (if any).

I also request copies of the minutes of all Standing Committee on Therapeutic Trials meetings where the application (or any earlier applications for the same study) was discussed.

I also note that SCOTT’s consideration of applications for this study presents some apparent conflicts of interest, insofar as:

• SCOTT Chair Assoc Prof Richard Robson is an advisor to the Board of, and has a financial stake in, New Zealand Clinical Research; and
• SCOTT member Dr Chris Wynne is the Chief Operations Officer of New Zealand Clinical Research;

where New Zealand Clinical Research is the company contracted to conduct the study. I request information about how these and any other conflicts were managed.

Note that the above is derived from my reading of the SCOTT membership list published on the HRC website and dated September 2019:

https://www.hrc.govt.nz/sites/default/fi...

If this is now out of date, I would like to request a copy of the current membership list.

Yours faithfully,

Scott