© Reuters. IMAGE FILE. A person walks past a Pfizer logo in New York City, April 1, 2021. REUTERS / Carlo Allegri
Nov 1 (Reuters) – Pfizer Inc (NYSE 🙂 said on Tuesday that its experimental respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine was effective in preventing serious infections in babies, after being given in a late-stage study to expectant mothers in the second half of pregnancy.
Pfizer injection, if approved, could be the first maternal vaccine available to alleviate the burden of the disease in young children. The company stopped the process after its initial success and plans to apply for approval in late 2022.
“Maternal immunization harnesses the ability to protect the baby from day one … which is important because the peak hospitalization in these babies due to RSV is around one to two months of age,” he said in one. interview. Kena Swanson, Pfizer’s vice president of vaccines.
The vaccine did not meet the study’s second main goal, which was to prevent less severe respiratory diseases, according to the company.
Companies like Pfizer and GSK (LON 🙂 Plc are competing to develop a vaccine against RSV, a leading cause of pneumonia in young children and the elderly. An effective vaccine is expected to generate billions of dollars in sales after approval.
Pfizer’s vaccine candidate met one of the study’s two primary endpoints, showing 81.8% efficacy in preventing severe lower respiratory tract disease in children during the first 90 days.
The unmet endpoint was the reduction of disease in children requiring care by a healthcare professional.
(Reporting by Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Spanish editing by Javier Leira)
