Written By: Longjam Dineshwori | Updated : November 17, 2020 10:57 AM IST
Moderna's vaccine uses the messenger RNA platform.
After Pfizer, another US-based pharmaceutical major has announced the preliminary data from its late-stage vaccine trial. Moderna on Monday revealed that its Covid-19 vaccine has shown more than 94.5 per cent effectiveness based on the interim data from the company's ongoing Phase-3 study.
Exactly a week ago, Pfizer Inc had announced more than 90 per cent efficacy of its vaccine following the first interim analysis of data from late-stage Phase 3 trial.
The companies are expected to seek emergency use authorisation of their vaccine from the US Food and Drug Administration soon.
"This positive interim analysis from our Phase 3 study has given us the first clinical validation that our vaccine can prevent the Covid-19 disease, including severe disease," IANS quoted Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel as saying.
Six potential Covid-19 vaccines are under different stages of development in the US. The vaccines are being developed using three different platform technologies: Messenger RNA, live viral vectors and recombinant protein.
While Pfizer and Moderna's vaccines use the messenger RNA platform, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca/Oxford University have made their vaccines using live viral vectors. Novavax and Sanofi/GlaxoSmithKline's vaccine candidates are built on the recombinant protein platform.
The mRNA-based vaccine candidate, BNT162b2, developed by Pfizer in collaboration with German biotech firm BioNTech achieved efficacy rate above 90 per cent at seven days after the second dose (28 days after the initiation of the vaccination), according to the companies. The Phase 3 clinical trial of the vaccine began on July 27 and has so far enrolled 43,538 participants.
To seek authorization for emergency use, the companies should provide two months of safety data from about half of the study participants. Pfizer is hoping to get the data by the third week of November.
Pfizer and BioNTech have already signed a $1.95 billion contract with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million vaccine doses. They aim to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses this year and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
Moderna is conducting the Phase 3 COVE study of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273 in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA). It completed enrollment of 30,000 participants for the study in October.
The company announced on Monday that its vaccine has shown above 94 per cent efficacy in preventing Covid-19. In addition, it said that the vaccine "remains stable at 2 to 8 degrees C (36 to 46 degrees F), the temperature of a standard home or medical refrigerator, for 30 days.
At lower temperatures of -20 degrees C (-4 degrees F), the mRNA-1273 vaccine remains stable for up to six months. Once the vaccine is taken out of a refrigerator for administration, "it can be kept at room temperature conditions for up to 12 hours," the company added.
Calling the Moderna results "striking", Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious diseases expert, said that America is well on course to begin vaccinating its most vulnerable population by December.
With inputs from agencies
