Biden and Boris both make advance orders for new Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine due out soon

AMERICAN pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has successfully developed a Covid-19 vaccine in conjunction with life sciences company BioNTech which it says has proven to be 90% effective and has already been endorsed by Joe Biden and Boris Johnson.

Earlier today, Pfizer announced that a new drug is in Phase Three trials and should be made available later this year after further testing. Immediately after the announcement, US president-elect Joe Biden and UK prime minister Boris Johnson both said that they would be buying millions of doses of the vaccine when it becomes available.

European stock markets and oil prices jumped on the announcement. According to preliminary findings, protection in patients was achieved seven days after the second of two doses and 28 days after the first dose.

Both companies said they expect to supply up to 50m vaccine doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3bn doses in 2021. Mr Biden said his administration, which takes office on January 20 next year will make the vaccine widely available free of charge, while Mr Johnson said his government will be purchasing 40m doses.

Pfizer chairman Albert Bourla, said: “The first set of results from our Phase Three Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19. We are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help bring an end to this global health crisis.

“We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most. We look forward to sharing additional efficacy and safety data generated from thousands of participants in the coming weeks.”

US biotech firm Moderna, several state-run Chinese labs, and a European project led by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca are also thought to be closing in on potentially viable vaccines. Two Russian Covid-19 vaccines have been registered for use even before clinical trials were completed but have not been widely accepted outside of Russia.

Phase Three clinical trials, the final stage of the new Pfizer vaccine, named BNT162b2 for now, began in late July and has enrolled 43,538 participants to date. Pfizer said it is gathering two months of safety data following the final dose, which is a requirement of the US Food and Drug Administration to qualify for Emergency Use Authorisation, which it expects by the third week in November.

While the Pfizer-BioNTech trial has yet to be peer-reviewed by experts, scientists reacted positively, if cautiously to the results. Michael Head, a senior research fellow in global health at University of Southampton, called it an excellent result for a first-generation vaccine.