Moderna says vaccine 100% effective against severe Covid

US biotech company Moderna will apply for US and European emergency authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine on Monday after full results from a late-stage study showed it was 94.1% effective with no serious safety concerns, the company said. It also said that its vaccine candidate had 100 per cent efficacy against severe disease.

According to an official statement by the company, the primary efficacy analysis of the “Phase 3 study of mRNA-1273 conducted on 196 cases confirms the high efficacy observed at the first interim analysis. The data analysis indicates a vaccine efficacy of 94.1 per cent. Safety data continue to accrue and the study continues to be monitored by an independent, NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB).”

Moderna said the 196 CCovid-19 cases in its trial included 33 adults over 65 years old and 42 volunteers from racially diverse groups, including 29 Latinos, 6 Blacks, 4 Asian Americans and 3 multiracial participants. There was one death related to Covid-19 in the placebo group.

Moderna plans to request an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The Phase 3 study, known as the COVE study, enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the US and is being conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy