On December 2nd, the UK became the first Western country to approve a vaccine for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease.
The BNT162b2 vaccine was created by BioNTech (BNTX) in partnership with Pfizer (PFE) and includes nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) to encode a form of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) spike protein.
The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) was the UK’s regulatory agency responsible for yesterday’s authorization and approval. The USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the EU’s European Medicines Agency (EMA) are both expected to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for use by mid-December.
