In what could prove to be a turning point in the fight against COVID-19, U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech announced yesterday that one of their coronavirus vaccines is more than 90% effective at preventing the viral disease, according to new data from its Phase III trial. They are predicting that they will have the requisite safety data for an Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA before the end of the month.
“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen. With today’s news, we are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis,” said Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla.
The vaccine in question is known as BNT162b2. According toGEN, this vaccine is “a nucleoside modified mRNA (modRNA) candidate that encodes an optimized SARS-CoV-2 full-length spike glycoprotein antigen.” IfBNT162b2 ends up being approved by the FDA, it would reach another milestone of being the first RNA-based vaccine to be approved for human use.