The difference between the first and the booster dose of Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTechin (NASDAQ: BNTX) the coronavirus vaccine has been substantially expanded in the UK – and Pfizer is not satisfied with that.
The UK’s Joint Vaccination and Immunization Committee, an advisory body that advises government health agencies, has approved new dosing guidelines for Pfizer / BioNTech’s BNT162b2 and the newly approved AZD1222 of AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The new guidelines state that the two required injections of both vaccines can be administered up to three months apart.
The main objective of the new recommendation appears to be to inoculate as many people as possible with the initial injection. The research indicates that partial protection against the coronavirus can begin as early as 12 days after the first injection.
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However, according to the Financial Times, Pfizer said, “[Our] study … was designed to assess the safety and efficacy of the vaccine following a two-dose schedule, separated by 21 days … The safety and efficacy of the vaccine have not been evaluated in different dosing schedules, as most trial participants received the second dose within the window specified in the study design. ”
He also said that there is no data to indicate that the initial dose of the vaccine is effective after those 21 days.
The change in the recommendation caused turbulence in the country, FT I wrote. The doctors were forced to re-schedule the patients in order to return several days after the initial booster injection. The newspaper quoted Dr. Helen Salisbury, a general practitioner in Oxford, as saying that the situation was “a mess”.
Neither Pfizer nor BioNTech surpassed the S&P 500 index on Thursday. The shares of the first company rose just 0.2% on the day, while those of the second fell 2.9%.