- General
- November 16, 2020
- 5 minutes read
Moderna: Covid-19 Vaccine 95% Effective
Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, Moderna. Photo credit: World Economic Forum, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Just after Pfizer and BioNTech reported…
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| Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer, Moderna. Photo credit: World Economic Forum, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 |
Just after Pfizer and BioNTech reported a 90% success rate from the Phase 3 trial of their coronavirus vaccine, another biotech company in the race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine by the name of Moderna has reported a vaccine efficacy of 94.5% from its own Phase 3 study. The company ran its trials on over 30,000 participants in the US and based its analysis on the first 95 out of that number to develop Covid-19 symptoms.
Under Moderna’s test program, half of the 30,000 people who participated were given two doses of its vaccine, four weeks apart while the other half were given dummy injections. Out of the 30,000, 95 people developed Covid-19 symptoms, 90 of whom were administered the dummy treatment. Only 5 people who were given the real vaccine came up with Covid-19 symptoms.
Moderna’s data indicates that 11 cases of severe Covid cases were witnessed in its trial but didn’t affect anyone immunized with its vaccine. For now, it’s not certain how long the immunity will last in the participants meaning they’ll still be monitored for a longer time.
With the results from its Phase 3 trial, Moderna now intends to request an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to administer its vaccines. In August, the US government notably awarded Moderna with a $1.5 billion contract for 100 million doses of its planned Covid-19 vaccine.
Moderna also plans to request authorization for the use of its vaccines from other agencies outside the US. The publicly-traded biotech company says it’s on track to produce between 500 million to 1 billion doses of its vaccine next year.
