The application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) comes days after the companies applied for emergency use of their vaccine in the United States. They said their candidate, BNT162b2, could be launched in the European Union this month.
‘If EMA concludes that the benefits of the vaccine candidate outweigh its risks in protecting against Covid-19, it will recommend granting a CMA (conditional marketing authorization)that could potentially enable use of BNT162b2 in Europe before the end of 2020,’ they said in a joint statement.
An effective immunization is seen as the main weapon against the pandemic, which has claimed more than 1.4 million lives and ravaged economies across the globe. Close to 50 potential vaccines are being tested on volunteers worldwide.
US drugmaker Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech reported final trial results on Nov. 18 that showed their vaccine candidate was 95% effective in preventing Covid-19, with no major safety concerns, raising the prospect of US and European approval as early as December.
Any clearance in the EU and United States will be ‘conditional’ or for ‘emergency use’, respectively, meaning developers are obliged to continue trials and provide more trial results as they emerge.
The European filing completes the so-called rolling review process, which was initiated with the EMA on Oct. 6.
The British government said last week that Pfizer and BioNTech had reported the data from their clinical trials to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
Mondrian Doha, Qatar’s leading destination from global lifestyle hospitality company sbe, is pleased to announce the launch of…
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The Arab states of the Persian Gulf are the seven Arab states which border the Persian Gulf, namely Bahrain, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).This excludes the non-Arab state of Iran. All of these nations except Iraq are part of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
