Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses of its vaccine by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
By Harriet Brewis
A frontrunner in the global race to secure a coronavirus vaccine has been found to be more than 90 per cent effective at preventing the disease.
Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and BioNTech, which developed the jab, have described it as a “great day for science and humanity”.
Their candidate, which has been found to produce both an antibody and a T-cell response in the body, has been tested on nearly 44,000 people and so far no safety concerns have been raised.
Pfizer believes it will be able to supply 50 million doses of its vaccine by the end of this year, and around 1.3 billion by the end of 2021.
About 12 Covid-19 vaccines around the world are currently in the final stages of testing, but Pfizer’s is the first to report any results.
The findings, published on Monday, are based on the first interim analysis of Phase 3 of the trials which have taken place in the US, Germany, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa and Turkey.
Participants receive two doses, three weeks apart, with early findings suggesting 90 per cent protection is achieved seven days after the second dose.
This means protection is achieved 28 days after the start of the vaccination process, researchers said.
However, they warned that as the study continues the final vaccine efficacy percentage may vary.
Dr Albert Bourla, Pfizer chairman and chief executive, said: “Today is a great day for science and humanity.
“The first set of results from our Phase 3 Covid-19 vaccine trial provides the initial evidence of our vaccine’s ability to prevent Covid-19.”
He added: “We will continue to collect further data as the trial continues to enrol for a final analysis planned when a total of 164 confirmed Covid-19 cases have accrued.
“I would like to thank everyone who has contributed to make this important achievement possible.”
Prof Ugur Sahin, one of the founders of BioNTech, described the results as a “milestone”.
The partner companies plan to apply to the US Food and Drug Administration – the US medicines regulator – by the end of the month for emergency approval to use the vaccine.
Scientists and world leaders have celebrated the promising findings, with the FTSE 100 jumping more than 5.5 per cent on the news, in the market’s best day since March.
Downing Street welcomed the results and said the UK will have procured 10 million doses by the end of the year to be given out if it is approved.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “The results are promising and while we are optimistic of a breakthrough, we must remember there are no guarantees.
“We will know whether the vaccine is both safe and effective once the safety data has been published and only then can licensing authorities consider making it available to the public.
“In the meantime, the NHS stands ready to begin a vaccination programme for those most at risk once a Covid-19 vaccine is available before being rolled out more widely.
“In total, we’ve procured 40 million doses of the Pfizer candidate vaccine, with 10 million of those doses being manufactured and available to the UK by the end of the year if the vaccine is approved by the regulators.”
However, experts remain “cautious” in their optimism.
Peter Horby, an Oxford University professor of emerging infectious diseases and global health, said the Pfizer results “bode well for Covid vaccines in general”.
“This news made me smile from ear to ear,” he said.
“It is a relief to see such positive results on this vaccine and bodes well for Covid-19 vaccines in general.
“Of course we need to see more detail and await the final results, and there is a long long way to go before vaccines will start to make a real difference, but this feels to me like a watershed moment.”
Meanwhile, Ian Jones, professor of virology at the University of Reading, said the Pfizer trial data shows “really impressive protection and no reported adverse events”.
He said: “Of all the current vaccines currently in development, the BioNtech product always looked like the most bang-per-buck as it is entirely focused on the part of the virus that binds to the human cell, the receptor binding domain.
“The questions around its use were about the ability to manufacture at scale and the possible toxicity associated with a directly injected RNA product.
“The trial data show excellent results in both of those areas, really impressive protection and no reported adverse events.”
Professor Azra Ghani, chair of infectious disease epidemiology at Imperial College London, also welcomed the results but said that long-term efficacy data would come over coming weeks and months.
She said: “These new results represent the first demonstration of substantial efficacy of a vaccine candidate against Covid-19 disease, which is very welcome news.
“It is important to bear in mind that these are early results based on a relatively small number of cases.
“In addition, the efficacy estimate is based on seven days of follow-up of participants following the second dose; further data in the coming weeks and months will provide a better picture of longer-term vaccine efficacy.”
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon also hailed the “good news” but stressed that there is “still a long way to go”.
Giving her daily update, she said: “This is news that should give us some tentative hope today and, let’s be honest, all of us could do with that.”
She described the vaccine news as being “perhaps amongst the best news we’ve had in recent weeks”.
Ms Sturgeon said: “It’s not going to provide us with a way out of this today, or tomorrow, or next week, or perhaps not even in this calendar year.
“But that development … does give us right now real hope that in the not too distant future science is going find us the way out of this terrible time.”
Originally published at standard