COVID-19 Vaccine Likely to Be Ready by October This Year, Says Pfizer CEO

A COVID-19 vaccine could be ready by the end of this year, according to Albert Bourla, head Pfizer Inc. (New York, NY, USA) which is conducting clinical trials of vaccines against the novel coronavirus.

Pfizer is collaborating with Biopharmaceutical New Technologies {(BioNTech) Mainz, Germany} for trials on several potential vaccines in Europe and the US. BioNTech and Pfizer will work jointly to commercialize the vaccine worldwide upon regulatory approval (excluding China, where BioNTech has a collaboration with Fosun Pharma for BNT162 for both clinical development and commercialization). Pfizer and BioNTech are working to scale up production for global supply. Pfizer-owned sites in three US states and in Belgium have been identified as manufacturing centers for COVID-19 vaccine production, with more sites to be selected. Through its existing mRNA production sites in Germany, BioNTech plans to ramp up its production capacity to provide further capacities for a global supply of the potential vaccine. The breadth of this program should allow production of millions of vaccine doses in 2020, increasing to hundreds of millions in 2021.

According to a report by The Times of Israel, Albert Bourla said that his company believed a vaccine could be ready before the end of the year. “If things go well, and the stars are aligned, we will have enough evidence of safety and efficacy so that we can… have a vaccine around the end of October,” he said.