Pfizer and Moderna begin decisive COVID-19 vaccine trials

Pharma companies across the globe are in the race for making the vaccine for coronavirus which is critical to contain the pandemic. The number of cases continues to surge across the globe as the nations are trying their best to get back to normal after a few months of a complete lockdown. The pharma companies like Pfizer and Moderna have started off two trials with about 30,000 subjects of the vaccine for COVID-19 that are expected to get a regulatory approval for the widespread use by the end of 2020.

Both the trials were announced on July 27, 2020 and are one of the first late stage studies which are currently being supported by the Trump administration that aims to speed up the measures to be taken to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The Trump administration has also hoped that an effective vaccine would also help to bring an end to the pandemic. The vaccines that have been announced by the pharma companies depend on the same technology and allows for faster development and manufacturing than the vaccine that are being made with the traditional methods.

It has the mRNA or the synthetic messenger RNA that dictates the immune system to identify and neutralize the coronavirus by imitating its surface. Moderna is one company that has not brought any vaccine to the market so far and the government of US has provided about $1 billion to the company that has helped it to keep rolling different vaccine candidates under the operation Operation Warp Speed program.

On the other hand Pfizer has got in to an agreement to sell vaccines for 50 million people in the US government for around $2 billion if the vaccine turns out to be effective. There are about 150 vaccines candidates which are under different stages of development and about two dozens of them are already conducting human trials. Johnson and Johnson is another company which is all set to launch its trials in the US this week.

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