New York: American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer hopes to seek regulatory approval for a COVID-19 vaccine “as early as October” 2020, and have a vaccine on the market by the end of this year.
Pfizer has struck a nearly $2 billion deal with the United States government to supply 100 million doses of a vaccine for COVID-19. This vaccine is being developed in association with its German partner BioNTech.
According to the pharma giant, “best case scenario” would be approval before year end and a vaccine by year end.
“In the third quarter of this year, we hope to get into the hospital setting with a drug that is given intravenously to patients hospitalised with COVID,” Senior Vice President, Drug Safety Research and Development at Pfizer, John Burkhardt said at a press conference in Connecticut Wednesday.
“An interesting thing about this vaccine approach is that the mRNA is enclosed in a lipid nanoparticle, so you can imagine the complexity of that. At this site, we are looking at engineering that particle and analyses for it that will allow clinical trials as well as the manufacturing to occur,” Burkhardt said.
Burkhardt though assured the Americans of safety. “Safety will not be compromised. We are very optimistic,” he said.
