MARBURG, Germany (NBC) – Pharma giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced Monday that its experimental vaccine is more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.
This is the first time drugmakers have showed successful data from a large-scale clinical trial.
The companies said they have, so far, found no serious safety concerns and will request emergency use of the vaccine in the U.S. later this month.
If the U.S. government approves, the vaccine will be given to a limited number of people at first.
This development is a major victory in the battle against a pandemic that has killed over a million people, depressed the economy and changed the way we live.
Pfizer will to ask to use the vaccine for people from 16 to 85 years-old.
More data will be collected and checked by the end of the month.
Of the 44,000 people in the vaccine trial, 94 developed covid-19. The announcement did not include how many of those received a placebo and how many received the vaccine. But the 90% effective rate implies that of the 94 that contracted COVID-19, no more than eight had received the vaccine.
The vaccine was given in two shots about three weeks apart.
The data has yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. Pfizer said it would do so once it has results from the entire trial.
Pfizer and BioNTech have a $1.95 billion contract with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million vaccine doses beginning this year. They have also reached supply agreements with the European Union, the U.K., Canada, and Japan.
Dozens of drugmakers and research groups around the globe have been racing to develop vaccines against COVID-19.
The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine uses messenger RNA (mRNA) technology, which relies on synthetic genes that can be generated and manufactured in weeks and produced at scale more rapidly than conventional vaccines.
Moderna Inc, whose vaccine candidate employs similar technology, is expected to report results from its large-scale trial later this month.
The mRNA technology is designed to trigger an immune response without using pathogens, such as actual virus particles.
Pfizer alone will not have the capacity to immediately provide enough vaccines for the entire United States.
The U.S. government has said the vaccines will be provided for free to Americans, including the insured, uninsured and those in government health programs such as Medicare.
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