Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) has been granted emergency use authorization in the U.S. for its COVID-19 vaccine.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to authorize use of Pfizer and partner BioNTech’s (NASDAQ:BNTX) vaccine sets in motion a complicated immunization drive that will launch across the country in coming days.
Among the first people to be inoculated will be health-care workers and seniors living in long-term care facilities. The vaccination effort will help end a pandemic that has, to date, killed nearly 300,000 Americans.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is a landmark scientific achievement, a vaccine built from a breakthrough technology in a matter of months, in the face of a pandemic that has sickened millions worldwide. It has already been approved by regulators in the United Kingdom and Canada.
The first doses will begin shipping throughout the United States immediately. A vaccine similar to Pfizer’s, made by Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA), is expected to gain U.S. clearance next week, providing the country with a potent combination for beating back the Coronavirus. More vaccines are also expected to be brought to market next year, expanding the arsenal doctors will have to rein in COVID-19.
Pfizer’s vaccine, like Moderna’s, uses a new technology called messenger RNA that turns the body’s own cells into vaccine-producing factories to fight the coronavirus. In a trial of 44,000 people, the Moderna vaccine was 95% effective at preventing symptomatic cases of COVID-19, protecting people of all ages and ethnicities.
