Just last week, Pfizer announced that its Coronavirus vaccine candidate showed more than 90% efficacy in treating the virus. This announcement was made after very promising results were observed in its late-stage trials.
Now, Moderna, another pharmaceutical company working on a vaccine for Coronavirus, in association with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has announced that there is an efficacy of 94.5% in its vaccine candidate.
There were a total of 30,000 volunteers that took two doses of the vaccine, and only 5 were found to still be carrying the virus after vaccination.
On the other hand, people who placebo treatment reported a higher chance of still being infected by Coronavirus. As a result, the market shares of Moderna jumped by more than 11% in premarket trading.
CEO Stephane Bancel of Moderna spoke to the media and said that this is a major breakthrough, and a very pivotal movement in the world, given that Coronavirus has already affected 54.4 million people and has killed more than 1.3 million people.
He also said that the vaccine has a good chance of treating even the most severe case of Coronavirus.
Moderna too is using the RNA or mRNA technology in its vaccines, which essentially provokes the immune system of a person to give an immediate response,
so that it can combat the virus and stop the virus from spreading in the body. A multitude of people took part in Moderna’s testing, including 12 Hispanic people, four African Americans, three Asian Americans and one multiracial, and all of them have reported to show good response to the vaccine.
Nearly 20 million doses are expected to be ready to ship in the USA by the end of this year, and Moderna is planning to ship out 500 million to 1 billion doses worldwide, in 2021.