Frankfurt Pfizer Inc and BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine could be rolled out in Europe this month, the companies said on Tuesday after they applied for EU emergency approval for the shot.
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.
Pfizer and BioNTech have their sights set on a December roll out of its coronavirus vaccine.Credit:Bloomberg
“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 authorisation) that could potentially enable use of BNT162b2 in Europe before the end of 2020,” they said in a joint statement.
In their pursuit of a European launch, the partners are neck-and-neck with rival Moderna, which said on Monday that it would ask the EU regulator to recommend conditional approval for its shot.
