JUST IN: Another U. S. Firm Announces New COVID-19 Vaccine ‘95%’ Effective

An American biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Moderna Incorporated, has announced that its vaccine candidate (mRNA-1273) has shown 94.5% effectiveness against the coronavirus.

Chief Executive Officer of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, made this known on Monday, in a statement published on its official website, seen by THE WHISTLER.

The company noted that “the independent, NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) for the Phase 3 study of mRNA-1273, its vaccine candidate against COVID-19, has informed Moderna that the trial has met the statistical criteria pre-specified in the study protocol for efficacy, with a vaccine efficacy of 94.5%.”

Meanwhile, Bancel stated that the company was glad that it had made progress in the fight against the pandemic.

“This is a pivotal moment in the development of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Since early January, we have chased this virus with the intent to protect as many people around the world as possible. All along, we have known that each day matters. This positive interim analysis from our Phase 3 study has given us the first clinical validation that our vaccine can prevent COVID-19 disease, including severe disease,”the CEO said.

The company added that about 95 COVID-19 cases were studied, which included about 15 older adults (ages 65), 12 Hispanic or LatinX, 4 Black or African Americans, 3 Asian Americans and 1 multiracial.

It stressed that it would now submit the product to the relevant authority for consideration.

“Moderna intends to submit for an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) with U.S. FDA in the coming weeks and expects the EUA to be based on the final analysis of 151 cases and a median follow-up of more than 2 months,” it stated.

The development is coming almost a week after Pfizer Incorporated, in partnership with BioNTech, announced that its own vaccine candidate (BNT162b2) was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19.

Countries are already bidding for Pfizer’s vaccine in large scale. For instance, the European Union had announced that it had sealed a deal for 300 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Recall that the World Health Organization had stressed that a vaccine would be crucial in the fight against covid-19, but it also called for equal distribution of each vaccine