Cautious Excitement, Relief After Pfizer Vaccine Result- What Happens Next

Business Standard Cautious excitement, relief after Pfizer vaccine result: What happens next?

The vaccine is the first to be tested in the United States to generate latestage data

Stock markets are booming, scientists are hailing Pfizer's vaccine which has shown 90 percent effectiveness and corporates are already imagining the sunny prospect of a return to on-campus work but Pfizer is reminding everyone that it still needs to check off three boxes before its silver bullet progresses toward emergency use authorisation.

Pfizer explains that there needs to be "success" in the following three areas: Evidence of efficacy in most vaccinated patients, evidence of safety with data from thousands of patients and manufacturing which is consistently at the highest quality standards.

Early Monday, Pfizer and German partner BioNTech released efficacy results from a late stage study of its Covid-19 vaccine candidate 'BNT162b2'. The company reported it was 90 per cent effective after looking at 94 infections in a study that has enrolled more than 43,000 people in the US and five other countries. Some got the vaccine, others got dummy shots.

The Phase 3 clinical trial began on July 27. Nearly 39,000 people have received a second dose of the vaccine candidate by November 8, 2020.

The next milestone for Pfizer and BioNTech is the third week of November. By then a median of 60 days of safety data will be available, as required by the FDA in its guidance for potential Emergency Use Authorization.

The Pfizer - BioNTech shot is one among 10 vaccine candidates in late-stage testing globally. Moderna, another US pharma giant, is also optimistic. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the US government's top-infectious disease expert, said today that Moderna's vaccine is also likely to work out.

In an interview with Bloomberg, William Moss of Johns Hopkins' International Vaccine Access Center laid out three questions that still need answers, despite the hugely encouraging despatch from Pfizer today: "How long does this protection last? What kind of disease did this prevent? Was it mild or severe?"