This comes a week after Pfizer announced similar results, providing hope that the world may soon have multiple vaccines that work effectively.
Moderna’s experimental coronavirus vaccine is 94.5% effective in protecting against infection with the coronavirus, according to early data released by the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company Monday (Nov.16). This comes a week after Pfizer’s announcement that its vaccine is more than 90% effective, Live Science previously reported. Though the clinical trials from both companies are still in progress and final, peer-reviewed data hasn’t yet been published, these results provide some hope as the U.S. faces a record-breaking surge of coronavirus cases. Both candidate vaccines shatter public health experts’ expectations on efficacy and far exceed the 50% efficacy requirement set by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a vaccine to be approved. Related: Most promising coronavirus vaccine candidates These early results were based on an early analysis conducted by an independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB), appointed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The analysis was based on 95 participants in Moderana’s phase 3 trial who developed COVID-19. Of these 95 cases,90 were among participants who received a placebo and five were among those given the vaccine, suggesting that the vaccine is 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19. Among the 95 cases,15 were people who were 65 years old and older and 20 were among people from diverse communities, according to Moderna. What’s more, in this group of participants,11 had severe cases of COVID-19, but none of these severe cases were among those given the actual vaccine. (Pfizer did not yet report whether its vaccine protected against severe disease.) The DSMB also didn’t report any significant safety concerns in this group of people; adverse events were generally mild or moderate, according to the statement.
