HEALTH: Coronavirus vaccine approval in mid-December according to the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen
Moderna had put pressure on Europe. But the European Union wants to show that it is on time: the European regulator could give the green light from mid-December to market the anti-Covid-19 vaccines developed by the American start-up Moderna and by the alliance Pfizer / BioNTech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced Thursday.
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is “in daily discussions” with its American counterpart, the FDA, to “synchronize their evaluations”, and the EMA could “give conditional authorization to market Pfizer’s vaccines / BioNTech and Moderna from the second half of December, if the procedures go smoothly, ”said the head of the European executive at the end of a summit of the Twenty-Seven by videoconference dedicated to the pandemic.
Asked about the possible use in the EU of the vaccine developed in Russia, which is trying in particular Hungary, she was very cautious: “Any vaccine must be submitted to the authorization procedure of the EMA, with complete transparency”.
The European Commission has so far signed five contracts to pre-order possible vaccines: with the Swedish-British AstraZenaca, the American Johnson & Johnson, the Franco-British duo Sanofi-GSK, the American-German duo Pfizer / BioNTech and the German CureVac.
