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Tuesday, September 08, 2020
Are Biontech researchers about to break through the fight against the corona pandemic? At least the CEO of the company has high hopes for the development of a highly effective vaccine. Approval could be requested from next month.
Biontech once again gives hope of success in the development of a vaccine against Covid-19: the consortium of the biotechnology company Mainz, which also includes the US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, characterizes the candidate BNT162 vaccine as “almost perfect”. Approval for this could be requested from mid-October to early November.
However, there are still some unknowns, and the company also wants to recruit more test subjects for clinical studies, says Biontech CEO Ugur Sahin, according to CNN. The candidate has an excellent profile and “I think this vaccine is almost perfect,” Sahin said in an interview with the station. “We believe that we have a safe product and that we can demonstrate its effectiveness.”
In light of the growing political debate about the early availability of a corona vaccine, nine competing pharmaceutical and biotech companies have vowed not to compromise on the development and approval of the vaccine. Approval will only be requested when tolerability and efficacy have been demonstrated in a rigorous phase three clinical trial, the CEOs of the nine companies said.
Trust the high standards
This applies to both regular approval and a possible emergency permit, he said. The developers will continue to adhere to the necessary high scientific and ethical standards, they said. The announcement aims to “ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which Covid-19 vaccines could be tested and ultimately approved.” The companies involved were AstraZeneca, BionTech, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, Novavax, Pfizer and Sanofi.
In the United States in particular, approval of a vaccine has recently become an increasingly political issue. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, promises almost daily that there will be a vaccine by the end of the year or possibly by the elections on November 3. For Republican Trump, who is heavily criticized for his handling of the pandemic, the availability of a vaccine would be a huge success by then. As a result, Democrats and health experts fear that Trump could pressure the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to issue an emergency authorization.
