Moderna’s Covid vaccine 94.5% effective in trials
Pollemix News – 15 November, 2020
Biotech giant Moderna announced on Monday morning that initial trials of their Covid vaccine candidate showed a 94.5% efficacy rate in a trial of 30,000 volunteers over a 28 day period. The news comes on the heels of Pfizer’s announcement last week that their vaccine was 90% effective, meaning there are now two standout options that have shown huge promise as potential solutions to the ongoing pandemic.
The development of the vaccine will now move into Phase 2 testing with two months of safety data to be collected on those who have received the vaccine to ensure that there are no unintended side effects associated, thus far there has been no significant health issues aside from fatigue and mild muscle pain.
Moderna anticipate they will be able to produce 20 million doses of the vaccine by the end of 2020 and 500 million to 1 billion doses in 2021, provided that the trials continue to be successful. The development of a vaccine has moved rapidly as the relentless spread of the pandemic globally has put the onus on pharmaceutical companies to accelerate their usual processes in order to find a timely solution. Furthermore, Governments worldwide have provided funds to companies seeking to develop a solution and Moderna itself received $955 Million through the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed program, although competitor Pfizer did not.
Moderna’s announcement is some much needed good news as Coronavirus cases have spiked significantly in the last fortnight with the US hitting a daily record of 184,000 cases on Friday as the onset of Winter has caused an anticipated but unwelcome resurgence of the pandemic.
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