Vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration are scheduled to meet Thursday to discuss the second coronavirus vaccine aimed at the US market, this one made by biotechnology company Moderna.
The FDA has already telegraphed that a quick emergency use authorization can be expected and this one could go through even faster than the EUA for Pfizer last week -- itself a speedy process.
The Moderna vaccine is very similar to Pfizer's and BioNTech's vaccine. Both use a new approach involving genetic material known as messenger RNA or mRNA.
"It's based on the same technology," Dr. Elissa Malkin, co-investigator for the Moderna Clinical Trial at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, told CNN.
"Really, they do seem quite similar," added Malkin, who has studied both the Pfizer and the Moderna data.
"I think they are very likely to authorize it quickly."
The technology does not require the actual virus to make the vaccine -- simply the genetic code, which is used to trick the body into making little bits that look like the outside "spike" protein of the virus, prompting an immune response.
Both have shown about 95% efficacy in preventing disease, both appear very safe and both have been tested in tens of thousands of volunteers across the US and the world.
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday he hopes the FDA will issue an EUA Thursday.
"Tomorrow, the FDA will hopefully make a decision regarding whether or not the Moderna messenger RNA vaccine will get an emergency use authorization," Fauci said on CNBC.
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