Moderna’s COVID-19 Vaccine Won’t Be Ready Until Spring of Next Year, Says CEO

Moderna, Inc.’s (Cambridge, MA, USA) COVID-19 vaccine is unlikely to be ready for widespread public distribution until the spring of next year.

At a conference hosted by the Financial Times (FT), Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that it would not seek emergency authorization for its vaccine for frontline medical workers and other at-risk individuals until November 25 at the earliest. Speaking at a health conference, Bancel said that Moderna would be ready only after late January to seek approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the use of its COVID-19 vaccine among the general population. If the vaccine proves to be safe and effective, an approval for emergency authorization by the FDA cannot be expected until late March or early April. Moderna’s spokesperson also confirmed Bancel's comment at the conference, noting that the company expected to have sufficient vaccine testing data to apply for emergency use authorization with the FDA by November 25.

“November 25 is the time we will have enough safety data to be able to put into an EUA file that we would send to the FDA - assuming that the safety data is good, i.e. a vaccine is deemed safe,” Bancel told FT.

Bancel predicted that Moderna would not be able to release the COVID-19 for the general public until sometime next spring.

"I think a late [first quarter], early [second quarter] approval is a reasonable timeline, based on what we know from our vaccine," Bancel said, according to FT.

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