According to information provided by apotheke-adhoc.de, the Mainz-based company BioNTech and the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer have developed a potential vaccine against the lung disease COVID-19, which could be ready for the market as early as October this year if further positive study results make this possible. 45 study participants aged between 18 and 55 years have already been tested. 24 of them received two doses of vaccine three weeks apart. Subsequently, the vaccinated persons showed stronger antibody formation than those who had survived infection with the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus. Large-scale Phase II/III studies are to follow soon. 30,000 study participants between 18 and 85 years of age will then be tested as volunteers at 120 study centres focusing on America and Germany with vaccine doses from the two companies. If this test series is positive, the application for approval could be submitted to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) at the beginning of October 2020, according to the schedule that was also presented to the German government. In July of this year, the US FDA already approved two potential COVID 19 vaccines of the BioNTech/Pfizer cooperation in an accelerated approval procedure. As a result, 100 million vaccine doses have already been promised to the Americans, and a further 500,000 vaccine doses have been granted as an option. According to dpa, the USA will pay 1.95 billion US dollars for 100 million vaccine doses against corona, with the vaccine to be offered there free of charge. Great Britain is also interested in a delivery of 30 million doses of „BNT 162“ vaccine and has therefore already signed a supply agreement, although no financial details were made public. Germany is currently holding talks. By the end of 2021, the pharmaceutical company wants to have provided 1.3 billion vaccine doses, according to company sources. The two Covid-19 vaccines are not intended to be vaccines in the original sense from living inactivated or killed pathogens, but novel so-called mRNA vaccines that do not contain an antigen, but only a „blueprint“ for an antigen. Thus, the human cell must first produce the antigen after this blueprint has been presented, before antibody formation occurs after the vaccination. The whole thing has the advantage that the injected mRNA that enters the body can stimulate the formation of various antibodies. In addition, the production of these vaccines is relatively quick and easy, which might make the use of the vaccine possible as early as autumn 2020.
