Pfizer optimistic about coming up with a COVID-19 vaccine in 2020

The world is looking forward for an effective vaccine for coronavirus, that has so far claimed millions of lives across the globe. There are hundreds of candidates across the globe that are in their late stages of vaccine development but not all of them have been much successful. Pfizer is one of the prospective candidates and has expressed a limited optimism in terms of coming up with a vaccine before 2020 ends.

Albert Bourla , the chief executive at Pfizer said that it can supply about 40 million dozes of the vaccine in the United States in 2020. But that would be possible only if the clinical testing continues and the regulators approve the vaccine. Bourla added that if all things fall in place as per their plans then they will be able to able to distribute the initial doses to people in the United States. The Chief executive also pointed towards its contract with the government of the US to supply 40 million doses by the end of 2020 and later 100 million doses of the vaccine by the month of March, 2021.

Despite the promises, Bourla added that the company is yet to reach a mark where it can be confident about the efficacy of the vaccine. The pharma company had earlier assured that it will have the data by the month of October, 2020. There are also chances that the company might file for an emergency use authorization for its vaccine during the third week of November, 2020. Bourla was asked if the company is confident that the vaccine would work, to which he gave a diplomatic answer that he is ‘cautiously optimistic’ that it would work.

On the other hand a COVID-19 vaccine by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca are also looking forward for a positive launch of its vaccine by the end of 2020 if things fall in place. The human trials of the vaccine were temporarily stalled after an adverse effect on a patient.

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