U.K. Set to Be First to Clear Pfizer-BioNTech Covid Vaccine
Source: Bloomberg
(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. is poised to become the first country to approve Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SEs Covid-19 vaccine, ahead of a long line of countries waiting for protection from the coronavirus.
Clearance is possible as soon as early next week, according to a person familiar with the situation, who asked not to be identified because the process is confidential.
The U.K. had long signaled it would move fast on any promising vaccine candidate. Russia and China have cleared vaccines for general use, but theyre unlikely to be adopted in the U.S. and Europe.
British doctors were put on standby for a possible rollout before Christmas. The government invoked a special rule allowing the U.K. drug regulator to bypass its European Union counterpart as the country prepares for the Brexit transition period to conclude at the end of this year. And the U.K.s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency started its own accelerated review.
Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/u-k-set-to-be-first-to-clear-pfizer-biontech-covid-vaccine/ar-BB1brZmY?li=BBnba9O
This will be interesting to see what kind of logistical hurdles there are to rolling out the Pfizer vaccine given the extreme requirements for storing it. It seems like some countries like India are just writing it off, because they do not have the infrastructure to transport it.