After Pfizer and BioNTech announced a covid vaccine 90% effective, the US-based biotech firm Moderna is now revealing impressive results with its vaccine which is currently on phase 3 of the trials.
Moderna has in fact announced its covid vaccine is now 94,5% effective after an analysis based on 95 patients. The jab is being trialled in about 30,000 volunteers and will not be available outside the United States until next year.
The firm announced it will have 20 million doses ready for the US before the end of the year and hoping to produce further 500 million to 1 billion doses to ship globally in 2021.
If the Moderna vaccine keeps up with the great results, the firm is expected to provide a major advantage over the Pfizer vaccine. In fact, while the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine require to be stored in freezing temperatures (about -80C) from production to patients, Moderna vaccine would be much more stable and would need a refrigeration temperature of 2 to 8 degrees for 30 days.
It can also be stored for 6 months at -20C. Moderna would be a more expensive alternative with a price ranging from £38 to £45 for two shots, while AstraZeneca and Oxford want to keep a low price of about £3 and Johnson and Johnson a mere £8 a dose. Pfizer vaccine is at the moment priced about £30 in the US.
Oxford Professor Trudie Lang said “It is very good news indeed to see another vaccine coming through with similar efficacy results as were reported last week from Pfizer.. This is really encouraging and it further demonstrates that a vaccine for Covid is a real probability and that having more than one supplier should help assure better and more equitable global availability.” Imperial College Professor Peter Openshaw also confirmed the results Moderna vaccine was having were “tremendously exciting”, especially for its proof of efficacy on elderly and high-risk people and for its advantage on refrigeration temperatures.
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