Pfizer and BioNTech have collaborated on the vaccine and will apply for an emergency approval as early as Friday.
The German pharmaceutical company BioNTech will launch their corona vaccine on the market in December.
This is stated by the company’s co-founder and CEO Ugur Sahin to the news agency AFP .
BioNTech is collaborating with the American pharmaceutical company Pfizer to develop the vaccine.
“We may be able to deliver the vaccine in December if everyone works closely together,” Ugur Sahin told AFP.
He adds that the company will apply for an emergency approval of the vaccine in the US as early as Friday.
TV 2’s Europe correspondent Lotte Mejlhede believes, however, that one should take the news with a grain of salt.
– The vaccines may be ready for initial distribution in mid-December, if all else goes smoothly. And you don’t know that with these processes, she says.
– A normal winter
Ugur Sahin says that if governments, pharmaceutical companies and others involved work closely together, up to 70 percent of the population could be vaccinated by the fall of 2021.
– Once we have achieved that, we can have a normal winter. Without another shutdown, the BioNTech founder tells AFP.
The message from Sahin comes after Pfizer on Wednesday released new data from the final test phase.
According to Lotte Mejlhede, the EU will most likely make a Union-wide plan that the most vulnerable groups will only receive the vaccine if it has time to be ready.
– A joint roll-out strategy is being drawn up by the EU, starting with the most vulnerable, of course. Those who can die from coronavirus, healthcare professionals and caregivers. And then all the rest of us, it sounds.
According to the latest data, the vaccine protects about 95 percent of the population against covid-19.
For people over the age of 65, it shows an efficiency of 94 percent.
– Good news
Søren Riis Paludan is a professor at the Department of Biomedicine at Aarhus University, where he researches viruses.
He assumes that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be approved for use in Denmark in the state by the new year.
– It is really good news that the high level of protection is also seen in people over 65 years. And it is also very positive that very few side effects are still reported, says Søren Riis Paludan to TV 2.
Crucial test phase
Since July, Pfizer and BioNTech have had a studio running with almost 44,000 participants.
170 cases of coronavirus were found. Of these, 162 of the cases were in the group of trial participants who received placebo. Only eight of the positive cases were among people who received the vaccine.
In total, ten people became seriously ill, of which nine were in the placebo group.
The trial is a phase three study, which is the final step in the development of a new vaccine or medicine before it can be approved by the authorities.
EU countries have made a pre-agreement to buy 225 million doses of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine if it is approved for entry into the market.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen confirmed at a press conference on Thursday evening that a vaccine could be ready as early as the second half of December.
Source: nyheder.tv2.dk
