Moderna says its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5 per cent effective based on clinical trials

Name: Moderna Covid-19 vaccine nearly 95 per cent effective in second promising trial for US drug makers
Uploaded: 2020-11-16T12:16:20.000Z
Duration: 2 min 23 s
Description: Moderna Covid-19 vaccine nearly 95 per cent effective in second promising trial for US drug makers

Together with Pfizer’s vaccine, the United States could have two vaccines authorised for emergency use in December

A key advantage of Moderna’s vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute

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Moderna Covid-19 vaccine nearly 95 per cent effective in second promising trial for US drug makers

Reuters

Published: 8:16pm, 16 Nov 2020Updated: 2:10pm, 17 Nov 2020

Moderna on Monday said its experimental vaccine was 94.5 per cent effective in preventing Covid-19 based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial, becoming the second US company in a week to report results that far exceed expectations.

Together with Pfizer’s vaccine, also shown to be more than 90 per cent effective, and pending more safety data and regulatory review, the United States could have two vaccines authorised for emergency use in December with as many as 60 million doses of vaccine available by the year’s end.

Next year, the US government could have access to more than 1 billion doses just from the two vaccine makers, more than needed for the country’s 330 million residents.

The vaccines, both built using new technology known as messenger RNA or mRNA, represent powerful new tools to fight a pandemic that has infected 54 million people worldwide and killed 1.3 million. The news also comes at time when Covid-19 cases are soaring, hitting records in the United States and pushing some European countries back into lockdowns.

“We are going to have a vaccine that can stop Covid-19,” Moderna President Stephen Hoge said.

Moderna’s interim analysis was based on 95 infections among trial participants who received either a placebo or the vaccine. Of those, only five infections occurred in those who received the vaccine, which is administered in two shots 28 days apart.

A key advantage of Moderna’s vaccine is that it does not need ultra-cold storage like Pfizer’s, making it easier to distribute. Moderna expects it to be stable at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for 30 days and it can be stored for up to 6 months at minus 20 degrees.