Moderna announced that its coronavirus vaccine is nearly 95% effective based on interim results from late-stage clinical trials. The ongoing phase 3 trials began in July with over 30k participants, and the interim results released this morning were based on 95 participants who contracted the virus during the study. The company expects to seek emergency use authorization from the FDA in the coming weeks, and noted that it plans to produce 20M vaccines this year and between 500M and 1B in 2021.
More context: Moderna is the second US-based company to announce positive results from vaccine trials this month. Pfizer (in partnership with BioNTech) announced last week that its vaccine is over 90% effective based on interim results from late-stage clinical trials.
Extra: The news comes as the coronavirus continues to surge around the world, including in the US (which surpassed 11M confirmed cases yesterday).
