Following the full results from a late-stage study showing Moderna Inc coronavirus vaccine was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns, the company has said it will apply for U.S. and European emergency authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine on Monday, Nature News gathered.
Moderna also reported that the vaccine’s efficacy rate was consistent across age, race, ethnicity and gender demographics as well as having a 100% success rate in preventing severe cases of a disease that has killed nearly 1.5 million people.
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The filing sets Moderna’s product up to be the second vaccine likely to receive U.S. emergency use authorization this year following a shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech which had a 95% efficacy rate in trials.
“We believe that we have a vaccine that is very highly efficacious. We now have the data to prove it,” Moderna Chief Medical Officer Tal Zaks said.
“We expect to be playing a major part in turning around this pandemic.”
Of the 196 volunteers who contracted COVID-19 in the trial with more than 30,000 people, 185 received a placebo while 11 got the vaccine. Moderna reported 30 severe cases – all in the placebo group – which means the vaccine was 100% effective in preventing severe cases.
“As the numbers of cases reported grows, confidence grows that this amazing protection will be maintained in a product that can be rolled out to protect the public,” said Alexander Edwards, associate professor in biomedical technology at Britain’s University of Reading.
In addition to filing its U.S. application, Moderna said it would seek conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency, which has already begun a rolling review of its data, and would continue to talk with other regulators.
Pfizer has already applied for emergency use authorization in the United States and Europe, putting it about a week ahead of Moderna.
Moderna said it was on track to have about 20 million doses of its vaccine ready to ship in the United States by the end of 2020, enough to inoculate 10 million people.
