Coronavirus vaccine: Pfizer starts clinical trials in US

Updated: 06 May 2020

  • Pfizer and Allergan on Monday announced plans to combine in a record $160 billion deal, creating a giant with products ranging from Viagra to Botox and a low-cost tax base on the edge of Western Europe. Photo: Reuters
  • Pfizer US trial will involve 360 patients in two age groups: 18 to 55, and 65 to 85

NEW YORK : Pfizer Inc. has administered the first US patients with its experimental vaccines to fight the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, part of a bid to shave years off of the typical time it takes to develop a new inoculation.

The trials are being conducted at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the drugmaker said Tuesday.

The short, less than four-month time-frame in which we’ve been able to move from preclinical studies to human testing is extraordinary, Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Preclinical studies are what companies do in animals or in the lab before they test vaccines in humans. Drugmakers have been working with regulators to compress development times to stop the spread of the virus, which has infected more than 3.5 million people globally and killed more than 250,000.