Health
Pfizer hopes for emergency approval of COVID-19 vaccine
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:
- Several hundred thousands of potential vaccine doses are seen rolling off a production line in Belgium as US drug giant Pfizer projects to make 100 million doses available by the New Year.
- UK boss Ben Osborn also told the Mail on Sunday that a drug that can provide a cure for the virus had been uncovered by scientists at their British labs.
- The firm is also seeking to acquire emergency US approval in the latter part of November.
Pfizer, the apparent leading developer of COVID-19 vaccine for the United States, has shown new footage of vaccine bottles rolling off the production line as the drug giant aims to produce 100 million doses ready by the New Year.
“It was great to see the first vial coming off the manufacturing line. It just brought a tremendous smile to my face to see all of this work actually result in a product,” the company’s UK boss Ben Osborn told the Mail on Sunday.
As the Manhattan-based company is preparing to seek emergency US approval of its vaccine in November, Osborn told the Mail on Sunday that it’s “tremendously exciting” that “several hundred thousand doses” of the current vaccine candidate had already been manufactured.
Furthermore, Osborn revealed in the Mail’s financial site- This is Money- that scientists in the main British lab have discovered drugs that could serve as a potential cure for COVID-19 instead of just being a preventative one.
“The hope here is that we essentially come up with a medicine that disrupts the virus and ultimately prevents it from worsening the condition of a patient,” he said, stressing that “we can only go as fast as the science allows us to.”
While the company is operating at top speed, says CEO Albert Bourla on Friday, Pfizer still has to ensure that the vaccine is safe and effective by the end of this month before it can properly seek emergency use in the US by the 3rd week of November.
Source: New York Post
