Experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested on 360 US patients, Pfizer announces
An experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Pfizer has been administered to patients in the United States, the pharmaceutical giant announced Tuesday.
Pfizer teamed up with German drugmaker BioNTech and began the trial last week in Germany. Anticipating a successful trial, Pfizer is already scaling up production to produce millions of vaccine doses this year and hundreds of millions by 2021, it announced in a news release.
The experimental vaccine, called BNT162, contains genetic material that could induce immunity for COVID-19, Pfizer said. There are four separate vaccine candidates Pfizer and BioNTech will consider to determine which is the most effective, the company said Tuesday.
Trials have begun at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine with healthy American patients in two separate age groups.
“We look forward to advancing quickly and collaboratively with our partners at BioNTech and regulatory authorities to bring a safe and efficacious vaccine to the patients who need it most,” Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla said in a statement. “The short, less than four-month timeframe in which we’ve been able to move from pre-clinical studies to human testing is extraordinary.”
Pfizer and BioNTech’s experimental vaccine is one of eight potential vaccines currently in clinical trials, according to the World Health Organization.
Mark Mulligan, director of the NYU vaccine center, said the method in the Pfizer-BioNTech trial is “actually a more natural mimic of what happens with a natural immune response to an invader,” according to Bloomberg.
Dr. Kirsten Lyke from University of Maryland added, ”We’re not skipping any steps, but we are speeding them up quite a bit,” according to the Baltimore Sun.
“This vaccine is actually four different vaccines, with testing moving rapidly, head-to-head,” she told the newspaper. “We’re hoping one rises to the top.”
“There certainly are things that I think are favorable in terms of the speed with which they can be produced and this idea that this is a natural type of vaccination,” he told the outlet.
The possible vaccine will be produced at Pfizer-owned sites in Massachusetts, Michigan and Missouri, Pfizer said.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the vaccine trial “is great news for our families, our neighbors, and those serving on the front lines during this crisis,” according to WKZO.
“COVID-19 has shown how vulnerable our country is when it comes to supply chain and much of the lifesaving materials we need are manufactured out of the country,” the governor said Tuesday. “That’s why we are so proud that one of the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in the world is the Pfizer site right here in Kalamazoo, Michigan. In fact, Michigan has a strong history of vaccine development with the polio and anthrax vaccines.”
There are more than 3.6 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and 252,000 deaths as of Tuesday morning, according to Johns Hopkins University. The U.S. is the epicenter of the virus with nearly 69,000 confirmed deaths.
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 7:07 AM with the headline "Experimental coronavirus vaccine being tested on 360 US patients, Pfizer announces."