Moderna to make up to 125mn Covid-19 vaccine doses available globally

New York: US-based drugmaker Moderna has said that it expects to have between 100 million and 125 million doses of its experimental Covid-19 vaccine available globally in the first quarter of 2021.

Out of these, about 85-100 million doses will be made available in the US and 15-25 million doses will be available outside of the US, the company said on Thursday.

These expected first quarter doses are inclusive within the 500 million to up to one billion doses that the company expects to manufacture globally in 2021.

Moderna also re-affirmed its expectation of having approximately 20 million doses available in the US by the end of this year.

The development comes after the company's November 30 announcement that the primary efficacy analysis of the Phase 3 study of the "mRNA-1273" vaccine showed efficacy of 94. 1 per cent.

Also on November 30, Moderna submitted a request for an emergency use authorisation (EUA) from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and conditional approval from the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Apart from Moderna, drug makers Pfizer and BioNTech also applied for emergency authorisation of their Covid-19 vaccine from the US FDA.

Britain on Wednesday approved the emergency use of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine from next week.

<em>(IANS)</em>.