Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA) watched its stock gain ground early Friday morning after the U.K.’s medicines regulator approved the company’s coronavirus vaccine on Friday for emergency use in the country.
It comes as the U.K. battles a more contagious strain of the virus, which has prompted an alarming surge of infections and deaths nationwide and resulted in a third lockdown.
Moderna’s is the third shot that has been authorized for use in Britain, following earlier approvals for the vaccines from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) and the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN)
In a release, the country’s Department of Health said the Moderna vaccine meets the “strict standards of safety, efficacy and quality” of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.
It added that the U.K. had ordered an extra 10 million doses of the vaccine, taking its total to 17 million. They are expected to be available from the spring.
The MHRA authorized the Moderna vaccine after months of rigorous clinical trials involving tens of thousands of people, the release said. It added that it is 94% effective in preventing COVID, including in the elderly.
On Dec. 8, the U.K. became one of the first countries in the world to begin vaccinating its population against the coronavirus. The country approved the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine on Dec. 2 and Oxford-AstraZeneca’s shot on Dec. 30.
It has now vaccinated around 1.5 million people and Hancock said Friday’s approval will allow the country to accelerate its vaccination program from the spring.
The vaccines are being given first to priority groups, including those in care homes, people over 80 and frontline health and social care workers.
MRNA shares increased $1.36, or 1.2%, to $116.45 in New York.
