Therapy Areas: Vaccines
Moderna's CEO expects interim results from COVID-19 vaccine candidate in November 2020
20 October 2020 -

Chief Executive Officer of American biotechnology company Moderna Inc (Nasdaq:MRNA), Stéphane Bancel, expects interim results from the company's COVID-19 vaccine trial in November 2020 and that the US government could give an emergency use nod in December 2020, the newspaper Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on Tuesday.

Speaking at the newspaper's annual Tech Live conference, Bancel was quoted as saying that sufficient interim results from the study takes longer to get and that the government's permission to use the vaccine may not come until next year.

Reuters news agency said on Tuesday that the first interim analysis of the vaccine's efficacy will happen when 53 people in the entire study get symptomatic COVID-19, according to the WSJ report.

The report quoted Bancel as saying: "That first analysis is likely to occur in November, but it's hard to predict exactly which week because it depends on the cases, the number of people getting sick."

Bancel also highlighted that a ramping up of production is a challenge. "If one ingredient is missing, we cannot make the vaccine," as per the Journal's report.

According to Reuters, Moderna is on track to produce 20 million doses of its experimental vaccine by the end of the year, the company had said in September 2020, adding that 25,296 participants had enrolled out of a planned 30,000 in its late-stage study.

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