COVID-19 VACCINE TO BE READY BY OCTOBER
Amidst the scientists and researchers in every corner of the world trying their best to get the most effective vaccine to treat the coronavirus, a global pharmaceutical ace has claimed the availability of an efficacious COVID-19 vaccine by October this year.
Pfizer, in collaboration with German mRNA company BioNTech, has already begun the clinical trials for the BNT162 vaccine program in the U.S. and Europe to prevent the effect of the virus to the maximum possible extent.
“If things go well and the stars are aligned, we will have enough evidence of safety and efficacy for us to feel comfortable, for the FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) to feel comfortable, and for the EMA (European Medicines Agency) to feel comfortable, to have a vaccine around the end of October,” Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said at an event recently organized by the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations.
The collaborated vaccine development program includes four candidate vaccines, each of them representing a varied combination of mRNA pattern and target antigen. The format is likely to help detect the safest and most effective candidate vaccine for use.
“With our unique and robust clinical study program underway, starting in Europe and now the U.S., we look forward to advancing quickly and collaboratively with our partners at BioNTech and regulatory authorities to bring a safe and efficacious vaccine to the patients who need it most,” Bourla said in a statement earlier in May, indicating its work in progress.
Pfizer added that the breadth of this initiative is expected to lead to the production of millions of vaccine doses in 2020, which will only increase to another hundred of millions in 2021. The aces around the world have proposed more than 120 vaccines since the emergence and evolution of the virus. As per the latest update, at least 10 candidate vaccines are under clinical evaluation, while 115 of them are in pre-clinical evaluation.