If the Pfizer vaccine is licensed, the number of doses will initially be limited.
Pfizer Inc said Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective, a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, hit the global economy and disrupted daily life.
Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drug manufacturers to publish successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The companies said they have so far encountered no serious safety concerns and hope to apply for US authorization this month for emergency use of the vaccine.
Health experts said that Pfizer’s results were positive for all COVID-19 vaccines currently in development, as they show that the vaccines are on the right track and are proof of concept that the disease can be stopped with vaccination. .
“Today is a great day for science and humanity,” said Albert Bourla, Pfizer president and CEO.
“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 approaching overcapacity and economies struggling to reopen.”
If the Pfizer vaccine is licensed, the number of doses will initially be limited and many questions remain, including how long the vaccine will provide protection.
BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin told Reuters he was optimistic that the immunization effect of the vaccine would last for a year, although it was not yet certain.
“This news made me smile from ear to ear. It is a relief to see such positive results from this vaccine and bodes well for COVID-19 vaccines in general,” said Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases at the University of Oxford. .
MARKET EMERGENCE
The prospect of a vaccine electrified world markets with S&P 500 futures hitting a record high and travel and tourism stocks soaring. Shares of companies that have benefited from pandemic-related lockdowns fell, including conferencing platform Zoom Video Communications, which was down 12% in pre-market trading.
Pfizer shares were reported to have risen 14.2% in pre-market trading in New York, while BioNTech shares were up nearly 23% in Frankfurt.
“Light at the end of the tunnel. Hopefully the vaccine deniers don’t get in the way, but 2021 just got a lot brighter,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com
Shares of other vaccine developers in the final stage of testing also rose, Johnson & Johnson was up 4% in pre-market trading and Moderna was 7.4% stronger. Britain’s AstraZeneca fell 0.5%.
“The efficacy data is really impressive. This is better than most of us anticipate,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee. “The study has not yet been completed, but the data looks very strong nonetheless.”
US President Donald Trump welcomed the test results and market momentum: “STOCK MARKET IN BIG, VACCINES COMING SOON. 90% EFFECTIVE REPORT. What GREAT NEWS!” he said on Twitter.
President-elect Joe Biden said the news was great, but it didn’t change the fact that face masks, social distancing and other health measures would be needed until well into next year.
1.3 BILLION DOSES
Pfizer hopes to obtain a broad US authorization for the emergency use of the vaccine in people ages 16 to 85. To do so, you will need two months of safety data from about half of the 44,000 study participants, which is expected by the end of this month.
“I’m almost ecstatic,” Bill Gruber, one of Pfizer’s leading vaccine scientists, said in an interview. “This is a great day for public health and for the potential to lift us all out of the circumstances we are in now.”
Pfizer and BioNTech have a $ 1.95 billion contract with the US government to deliver 100 million doses of vaccines starting this year. They have also reached supply agreements with the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada and Japan.
To save time, companies started making the vaccine before they knew if it would be effective. They now hope to produce up to 50 million doses, or enough to protect 25 million people this year.
Pfizer said it expects to produce up to 1.3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.
The US pharmaceutical giant said the interim analysis was conducted after 94 trial participants developed COVID-19, examining how many of them had received the vaccine versus a placebo.
The company did not break down exactly how many of those who became ill received the vaccine. Still, more than 90% effective means that no more than 8 of the 94 people who contracted COVID-19 had received the vaccine, which was given in two injections about three weeks apart.
The efficacy rate is well above the 50% effectiveness required by the US Food and Drug Administration for a coronavirus vaccine.
MORE DATA IS NEEDED
To confirm the efficacy rate, Pfizer said it would continue the trial until there are 164 cases of COVID-19 among the participants. Bourla told CNBC on Monday that, based on rising infection rates, the test could be completed before the end of November.
The data has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. Pfizer said it would do it once it has the results of the entire test.
“These are interesting early signals, but again they are only reported in press releases,” said Marylyn Addo, director of tropical medicine at the Hamburg-Eppendorf University Medical Center in Germany.
“The primary data is not yet available and a peer-reviewed publication is still pending. We still have to wait for the exact data before we can make a final assessment.
The global race for a vaccine has seen richer countries forge multi-billion dollar supply deals with pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer, AstraZeneca Plc and Johnson & Johnson, raising questions about when poorer and middle-income nations will have access. to vaccines.
The US search for a vaccine has been the Trump administration’s central response to the pandemic. The United States has the highest known number of COVID-19 cases and deaths with more than 10 million infections and more than 237,000 deaths.
Trump repeatedly assured the public that his administration would likely identify a successful vaccine in time for the presidential election, held last Tuesday. On Saturday, Democratic rival Biden was declared the winner.
ESSENTIAL TOOLS
Vaccines are seen as essential tools to help end the health crisis that has shuttered businesses and left millions out of work. Millions of children whose schools closed in March continue to participate in distance learning programs.
Dozens of drug manufacturers and research groups around the world have been racing to develop vaccines against COVID-19, which surpassed 50 million infections on Sunday since the new coronavirus appeared late last year in China.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which is based on synthetic genes that can be generated and manufactured in weeks, and produced at scale faster than conventional vaccines.
Moderna Inc, whose vaccine candidate employs similar technology, is expected to report the results of its large-scale trial later this month.
The mRNA technology is designed to trigger an immune response without using pathogens, such as real virus particles.
Pfizer alone will not have the ability to immediately provide sufficient vaccines for the United States. The Trump administration has said it will have enough supply for the 330 million US residents who want to get vaccinated by mid-2021.
The US government has said that vaccines will be provided free to Americans, including the insured, the uninsured, and those who participate in government health programs like Medicare.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is posted from a syndicated channel.)
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