Novavax Announces Efficacy for Vaccine Following Phase 3 Trials

The study began back in December with just under 30,000 adults across 113 sites in the U.S. plus six locations in Mexico.

This morning, the American Biotech company Novavax announced that its coronavirus vaccine candidate has an overall efficacy of 90.4 percent. That’s after it completed a phase 3 trial that was conducted across the United States and Mexico. The study began back in December with just under 30,000 adults across 113 sites in the U.S. plus six locations in Mexico. Some of the participants were given a placebo, while others were administered two doses of the Novavax vaccine at 21 days apart. The company said the vaccine was “generally well-tolerated” and common side effects included pain at the injection site, fatigue, headache and muscle pain. Among the participants, there were only 77 covid-19 cases that emerged. 63 of those were in people who received the placebo and 14 were in the vaccine group. Novavax noted that all of those 14 cases were mild. Meanwhile, in the placebo group, 10 were moderate and four cases were severe. Novavax said it plans to apply for emergency use authorization of its vaccine in the third quarter of this year and is “on track” to manufacture about 100 million doses per month by the end of the third quarter.