On Monday, the American company Pfizer together with its German partner BioNTech announced preliminary results from their Covid-19 vaccination study which suggested their vaccine was more than 90% effective. This is the first result of any late-stage clinical trials for a vaccine and has sparked hope for many, even though there is still much information to be announced. Here is what we know so far:
Back in July, Pfizer and BioNTech started their blinded Phase III clinical trial for a coronavirus vaccine with over 44,000 participants. 22,000 volunteers were vaccinated while the other group received a placebo of saltwater. Researchers then waited for participants to get sick to see whether the vaccine showed any protection against the virus. Based on those observations, the early analysis suggests that the vaccine shows the effectiveness of over 90%. In order to be approved by the FDA for emergency authorization, 50% for efficacy for vaccines is required. According to Pfizer, the clinical trial will continue until 164 active Covid-19 cases have been reached. Based on the evidence, researchers will draw conclusions about the efficacy of the vaccine.
In terms of safety, Pfizer and BioNTech have not yet reported serious safety concerns from the vaccine. The companies had tested certain warning signs for their vaccine safety already back in May in their early phase clinical trials. Hereby, four different versions of the vaccine were tested for different levels of side effects, and only the vaccine with the least amount of mild to moderate effects was tested in the late-stage trial.
According to Pfizer, around 30 to 40 million doses of vaccine could be produced by the end of the year, which equals enough doses for around 15 million people to get a shot and a booster three weeks later. Hereby, people that belong to high-risk groups or are health front-line workers are most likely to receive the vaccine first.
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Since 2015, our team has been hard at work raising awareness of clinical trials across the globe. A Forbes ‘30 Under 30’ company and a graduate of the renowned Techstar program in New York, Citruslabs is at the forefront of patient recruitment and retention technologies. With over 3 million patients now recorded on our databases, our patient recruitment dashboard is fast becoming the most efficient method of trial recruitment.
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With more than 200 research sites now using the Citrus platform to screen thousands of patients every month, researchers are now well on their way to finding new treatments for hundreds of different health conditions - something that just would not be possible without a technological solution. Make sure that your clinical trial is in the lucky 12% and turn that luck into guaranteed results with Citrus.
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