Pfizer says its coronavirus vaccine could be ready by this fall, and US testing could start as early as next week
- US and German pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech have partnered to develop a coronavirus vaccine that they hope could be available for emergency use by fall, The Wall Street Journal reported.
- BioNTech said the companies have already given the vaccine to 12 healthy people in Germany and are preparing to scale it up to 200 people in the next phase.
- The companies said they could begin testing in the US as soon as next week, the Journal reported. The company said in a statement they expect the approval "shortly."
- The companies join at least 70 other groups racing to develop a coronavirus vaccine on vastly accelerated schedules.
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A coronavirus vaccine currently being developed by Pfizer and German company BioNTech could be ready for emergency use by this fall, Pfizer's CEO told The Wall Street Journal.
The two companies, which have partnered in efforts to develop a vaccine, began giving the experimental shot to 12 people in Germany on April 23, using their vaccine candidate "BNT1622", BioNTech and Pfizer said in a statement. The data from this trial is expected "as early as June this year," a BioNTech spokesperson told Business Insider.
They are now waiting on approval to begin testing in the US.
In the next phase, the companies plan to try the vaccine in 200 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55, BioNTech said. They'll test different doses of the vaccine. In its statement, it said it expects approval from the US Food and Drug Administration to start testing "shortly."
Though it usually takes years for a vaccine to be tested and fully approved, the FDA can authorize Emergency Use Authorizations (EUAs) for experimental use of a treatment or equipment during a public health emergency.
It has already issued EUAs for different forms of personal protective equipment and ventilators.
"We are leaving no stone unturned as we explore every option to help provide society with a treatment or cure," said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla in a statement about the company's work on the coronavirus.
Pfizer and BioNTech are among several that have joined a vastly accelerated race to develop a vaccine against the pandemic.
By mid-April, the World Health Organization had documented 70 different efforts to create a vaccine. Drugmakers CanSino, Moderna, and Inovio have each announced they had begun human trials.
Pfizer and BioNTech is not the only group hoping to have a vaccine ready for emergency use by fall.
The US biotech Moderna has said its vaccine could be ready for emergency use by the fall as well.
On April 23, Oxford University's Oxford Vaccine Group announced they had injected a trial vaccine into two human subjects and raised the possibility it could be ready for emergency use on coronavirus patients by September.
Johnson & Johnson also hopes to have a vaccine ready for emergency use in early 2021.
Extraordinary efforts are being made to shave time off a process that normally takes years. In early March, top White House coronavirus task force lead Anthony Fauci said that it could take up to 18 months to develop a vaccine at the earliest, though experts have warned of the risks of cutting steps such as animal-testing phases.
Some groups have found other ways to shorten the trials. Indian vaccine maker the Serum Institute is preparing 40 million units of the trial vaccine being used in the Oxford efforts, despite not knowing if it will work, as Business Insider's Bill Bostock reported.
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