COVID-19 vaccine trial: Pfizer expects results by October end

• Pfizer is likely to know whether its potential COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2), is effective by next month.
  
• Pfizer’s potential COVID-19 vaccine is one of three vaccines backed by the U.S.
  
• The Donald Trump government in July placed an initial order of 100 million doses for $1.95 billion.
  

American pharma giant Pfizer is likely to know whether its potential COVID-19 vaccine, BNT162b2), is effective by next month. In case the vaccine that it has developed along with German’s BioNTech is effective and safe, the company plans to immediately file for approval.

“We expect by the end of October, we should have enough ... to say whether the product works or not. Our phase three study will be the only one that will allow us to say if we have a safe and effective vaccine. If we don’t have results from a phase three study, we would not submit,” said CEO Albert Bourla.

Pfizer’s potential COVID-19 vaccine is one of three vaccines backed by the U.S. The Donald Trump government in July placed an initial order of 100 million doses for $1.95 billion and added that it could acquire up to 500 million doses for Americans if the vaccine is effective.

It recently enrolled 23,000 volunteers to test their COVID-19 vaccine. Further, data from the early-state vaccine trial was “well tolerated with mild to moderate fever in fewer than 20% of the participants.”

The pharma company is going to enroll another 30,000 participants for its phase-III trials across 120 sites globally. CEO Bourla has also planned to supply up to 100 million doses by the end of the year and another 1.3 billion doses next year.

Pfizer’s statement comes at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the US is asking states and local governments to prepare the sites for vaccine distribution as early as November.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca said it is expecting results for the last-stage trial later this year. Johnsons and Johnson said it is going to start a Phase-III trial this month and is likely to deliver the first batch of vaccine by 2021.

According to the World Health Organisation, there are 176 COVID-19 vaccines under development, of which 33 have entered human trials.

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