Biopharmaceutical company Moderna Inc. (NASDAQ:MRNA) says that Canada’s health ministry has agreed to review its experimental Covid-19 vaccine in real time, becoming the third vaccine maker to be accepted by the country for a process that may speed up approvals.
Health Canada is already conducting real-time reviews of Covid-19 vaccine candidates from BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) and Pfizer (NYSE:PFE), as well as AstraZeneca. Moderna said it has begun the rolling submission in Canada following positive early results from studies of its vaccine candidate known as "mRNA-1273."
Last week, the drug maker said it will soon apply for a real-time review of mRNA-1273 in Europe, days after the European Union health regulator launched rolling reviews of vaccines from AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN) and Pfizer-BioNTech.
Real-time reviews could speed up the process of approving a successful vaccine by allowing researchers to submit findings in real time, without having to wait for studies to conclude first.
Moderna, one of the companies that is furthest along in the race for a Covid-19 vaccine, said last week that the ongoing U.S. trial of mRNA-1273 was on track for a data readout by November of this year.
