Covid-19: Moderna vaccine set to receive US approval

The US drugs regulator will grant emergency approval to a second coronavirus vaccine in the coming days, a decision that will make it the first country to have authorized two inoculations against the virus.

Report informs referring to Financial Times.

The US Food and Drug Administration decided on Thursday night to approve Moderna’s vaccine on an emergency basis, according to people close to the process, following the recommendation to do so by a panel of outside experts.

Stephen Hahn, the head of the FDA, and Peter Marks, the head of the regulator’s vaccine division, issued a statement on Thursday night that said they had informed Moderna they would work towards the “finalization and issuance” of an emergency approval. Officials close to the process said they had made the decision to authorize the vaccine and were now working on the written information to doctors and patients to accompany it.

The move will make the US the first country to have approved the vaccines from both Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna and help the Trump administration meet its goal of producing enough doses to vaccinate 20m people by the end of the year.

Moderna’s vaccine, which will be the drug company’s first to gain any regulatory approval, is similar to Pfizer/BioNTech’s, using the same technology and boasting a similar efficacy rate, at 94.1 percent.

An FDA report published earlier this week found it was “highly effective” and raised no significant safety concerns. Unlike Pfizer’s vaccine, however, which is available to anyone over the age of 16, Moderna’s inoculation is only being authorized for over-18s.