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Pfizer Inc. said a final analysis of data from clinical trials showed that its Covid-19 vaccine was 95% effective, paving the way for the company to apply for the first U.S. regulatory clearance for a vaccine against the coronavirus in a few days.
US drugmaker and partner BioNTech SE said its vaccine protected people of all ages and ethnicities, without major safety concerns so far in a trial that includes nearly 44,000 participants.
Pfizer shares were up 2.7% in premarket trading, and BioNTech American’s depository receipts were up 7.3%. European stocks extended their gains on the news, with the Stoxx Europe 600 up 0.4%
The update is the latest in a series of promising developments on the vaccine front in recent days.
Moderna Inc.’s rival coup appears equally effective, judging from data released earlier this week, and a third contender, from AstraZeneca Plc and the University of Oxford, is expected to release the test results in the coming days. .
Data from Pfizer-BioNTech shows that 170 trial participants contracted Covid-19 overall. Eight participants who received the vaccine became ill, while 162 cases were seen among those who received the placebo.
The injection helped prevent serious illness, according to the analysis, and nine of the 10 severe cases in the trial occurred in the placebo group.
The vaccine’s efficacy in people 65 and older was more than 94%, the companies said.
Most of the people who received the injection tolerated it well. Severe fatigue was seen in 3.7% of volunteers after the second dose in the two-injection regimen, but that was the only serious side effect that occurred in more than 2% of people, according to the analysis.
Market rally
Pfizer and BioNTech said last week that an initial reading showed the vaccine was more than 90% effective. The news helped trigger a broad stock market rally in hopes the shot could help control a pandemic that has killed more than 1.3 million people worldwide.
On Monday Moderna released its own promising results and said it hopes to apply for an emergency clearance in the US in a few weeks.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to apply for the US emergency authorization “in a few days,” according to the statement.
On Tuesday, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told a conference that the companies had collected the two-month safety monitoring data required by the US Food and Drug Administration.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are based on messenger RNA, a new type of vaccine technology that can be implemented very quickly.
Basically, it turns the cells of the body into tiny machines to make vaccines. Vaccines instruct cells to make copies of the coronavirus spike protein, stimulating the production of protective antibodies.
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