The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine against COVID-19 received an emergency use authorization from the FDA last Friday, and thousands of doses are being rolled out across the country this week. But the vaccine, which must be stored at between -80 and -60 degrees Celsius, necessitates the utilization of a “cold chain” to keep it within this temperature range from the moment it leaves the manufacturing site to just before it is administered to a patient.
The University of Oxford’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, developed in partnership with the biotech AstraZeneca, is the third vaccine this week to publicize promising data from its clinical trials. And, in a surprising twist, it appears that a lower dose of the vaccine does a better job at protecting participants from COVID than a higher dose.
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.
A research team at MIT, led by Dr. Kripa Varanasi, has figured out a way around one of the major barriers to the delivery of concentrated biologic drugs.