COVID-19 vaccine expected to be ready for approval by year end: WSJ

BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate is expected to be ready to seek regulatory approval by the end of 2020, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing the German biotech firm’s chief executive officer.

The experimental vaccine, which showed promise against the fast-spreading respiratory illness in early stage human testing, is expected to move into a large trial involving 30,000 healthy participants later this month, pending regulatory nod.

If it receives marketing approval, the companies are preparing to make up to 100 million doses by the end of 2020 and another 1.2 billion doses by the end of 2021 at sites in Germany and the United States, Reuters reported last week.

Several hundred million doses could be produced even before the approval, according to the WSJ report here.

BioNTech and Pfizer did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment.