Moderna executives project that the company will have enough evidence to ask regulators to determine whether the vaccine is effective by this fall or late this year.
The first person received a shot Monday morning in a large-scale test of a vaccine candidate being developed by biotechnology company Moderna in collaboration with the U. S. government.
The experimental vaccination marks a much anticipated milestone: the official launch of a series of massive U. S. clinical trials that will test the effectiveness and safety of experimental vaccines in 30,000 participants, half receiving the shot and half receiving a placebo.
Moderna executives project that the company will have enough evidence to ask regulators to determine whether the vaccine is effective by this fall or late this year, company president Stephen Hoge testified before Congress last week. Moderna is planning to produce 500 million doses of the vaccine per year, with the possibility of making 1 billion doses annually in 2021. Over the weekend, the U. S. government committed $472 million to support the large trial, doubling the federal investment in Moderna’s vaccine candidate.
