Moderna reports success in vaccine development
Another research project has reported a decisive success in the global race for a corona vaccine. The corona vaccine from the US biotech company Moderna showed according to an interim analysis published on Monday an effectiveness of 94.5 percent in protection against Covid-19.
Moderna is the second large US pharmaceutical company to present positive data from the approval-relevant study with a corona vaccine within a week. Last Monday, the Mainz biotech company BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer announced that their vaccination offers more than 90 percent protection against Covid-19.
The European Medicines Agency EMA has subsequently initiated the test procedure for a corona vaccine from the company Moderna Biotech in Spain, a spin-off of the US company Moderna. The CHMP scientific committee of the EMA had given the green light for the so-called rolling review process after the first promising results from studies, the authority announced on Monday in Amsterdam.
With this accelerated approval process, pharmaceutical companies can report their vaccine candidates to the EMA in a kind of pre-approval process during the clinical trial phase. The data from ongoing studies are then submitted on an ongoing basis and assessed by the EMA. In addition to Moderna, Biontech / Pfizer and the British-Swedish company Astrazeneca are currently taking this route.
How long the review will take is unclear. As soon as there is sufficient evidence for the effectiveness as well as the safety and quality of the vaccine, approval for the European market can be applied for. The Moderna vaccine mRNA-1273 should, like the other preparations, enable the body to fight off an infection with the coronavirus, but at least prevent severe courses of Covid-19 as well as possible.
Because the data is evaluated as soon as it is available, and not only after a formal application for marketing authorization has been submitted, the process leading to marketing authorization can be shortened considerably with a rolling review procedure. (dpa, Reuters)
