Biotech company Moderna said on Monday that early analysis from its phase 3 trial shows its Covid-19 vaccine is 94.5 percent effective at preventing the infection, offering hope of a second breakthrough in as many weeks.
The news comes a week after pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said early analysis showed its vaccine candidate was more than 90 percent effective.
Moderna also said its vaccine does not require ultra-cold storage, unlike the candidate announced by Pfizer that has to be stored at temperatures of minus 70 degrees Celsius (-94 Fahrenheit) or below, easing concerns about how to efficiently distribute vaccines to billions of people around the world.
Professor Trudie Lang, the director of the Global Health Network at Oxford University, called Moderna’s announcement “very good news indeed.”
The company said its phase 3 trial enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the U.S., including people over 65 with high risk conditions and from communities of color.
“These early results suggest that there was a representation across different age groups and diverse communities in the protected group,” she told Reuters. “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.”
The announcement raises more hope of ending the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 1.3 million lives around the world and caused global economic turmoil and pain. The news also comes as the United States surpassed more than 11 million Covid-19 cases and cases continued to spike in Europe.
The company said the analysis did not reveal any significant safety concerns, and the vaccine was generally well tolerated.
