Experimental COVID-19 vaccine over 90% effective: Pfizer

Pfizer Inc says its experimental COVID-19 vaccine has been more than 90% effective, a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed more than a million people, battered the world's economy and upended daily life.

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drugmakers to release successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The companies said they have so far found no serious safety concerns and expect to seek US authorization this month for emergency use of the vaccine.

Health experts said Pfizer's results were positive for all COVID-19 vaccines currently in development since they show the shots are going after the right target and are a proof of concept that the disease can be halted with vaccination.

"Today is a great day for science and humanity," Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive, said.

"We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen."

If Pfizer's vaccine is authorized, the number of doses will initially be limited and many questions remain, including how long the vaccine will provide protection.

BioNTech Chief Executive Ugur Sahin told Reuters he was optimistic the immunization effect of the vaccine would last for a year although that was not certain yet.

Pfizer expects to seek broad US authorization for emergency use of the vaccine for people aged 16 to 85. To do so, it will need two months of safety data from about half the study's 44,000 participants, which is expected late this month.

Pfizer said it expects to produce up to 1.3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.

To confirm the efficacy rate, Pfizer said it would continue the trial until there are 164 COVID-19 cases among participants.

Russia's Sputnik V vaccine over 90% effective: Health ministry

Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against COVID-19 is more than 90% effective, a representative of the health ministry said on Monday, citing data collated from vaccinations of the public rather than from an ongoing trial.

"We are responsible for monitoring the effectiveness of the Sputnik V vaccine among citizens who have received it as part of the mass vaccination program," Oksana Drapkina, director of a research institute under the health ministry, said in a statement.

"Based on our observations, its effectiveness is also more than 90%. The appearance of another effective vaccine - this is good news for everyone," Drapkina said.

Earlier on Monday, Alexander Gintsburg, director of Moscow's Gamaleya Institute which developed the Russian vaccine candidate, said he welcomed the Pfizer news.

"In the near future, we expect to publish interim results of the post-registration trial of the vaccine Sputnik V, the so-called Phase III trials. I am sure that its effectiveness level will also be high," he said.

Russia is gearing up to publish preliminary results of an ongoing large-scale human trial, known as Phase III, this month.

It is testing the vaccine on 40,000 people in Moscow.

MG