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“Illegal access” to Biontech documents in a cyber attack
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The European Medicines Agency has been the target of a cyber attack
What: REUTERS
According to Biontech and Pfizer, documents about the coronavirus vaccine from pharmaceutical companies were accessed in a hacker attack on the European Medicines Agency. The company’s shares fell.
reThe European Medicines Agency (EMA) has been attacked by cybercriminals. “Certain documents related to submission of approvals for Pfizer and Biontech’s Covid-19 candidate vaccine BNT162b2 are affected,” Biontech said Wednesday night. There was an “illegal access”. There is no evidence that patient data is affected.
According to the EMA, the incident will have no impact on the vaccine’s examination deadlines. Pfizer confirmed the information. The EMA had previously announced the hacking attack without giving details. It is in charge of evaluating and controlling drugs.
Shares of Biontech and Pfizer fell on Wall Street as much as 3.5 percent. In recent months, there had already been several attacks on research institutions and companies in relation to Covid-19 vaccines; Hackers from Russia, China and North Korea are said to have participated in some cases.
The EMA is currently targeting approval of the Biontech vaccine by the end of December, for a Moderna agent in mid-January. EMA experts have already analyzed vast amounts of data from the companies’ pretests in recent months, Emer Cooke, head of the authority, said earlier this month.
British health authorities have already granted emergency approval for the corona vaccine from Mainz-based pharmaceutical company Biontech and its US partner Pfizer. People in Britain have been immunized en masse since Tuesday.
Also in Canada, health authorities gave the green light to the active ingredient from Biontech and Pfizer on Wednesday. The vaccine had undergone accelerated testing while it was still in clinical trials. Meets “stringent safety, efficacy and quality requirements for use in Canada”. A statement from Biontech said that at least 20 million doses of vaccines would be delivered to Canada over the next year.
Meanwhile, Israel received the first vaccine doses of the active ingredient Biontech-Pfizer. These first cans arrived on Wednesday aboard a DHL cargo plane at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, which was greeted by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. He announced that he wanted to be the “first” to get vaccinated to be a “role model.”
