Although it is an American company, the vaccine is also produced in Europe / EU has signed a preliminary agreement / Pfizer boss Bourla has to make a statement about his shares in order not to discredit the process / AstraZeneca results expected soon


"This is again very good news", commented MEP and health policy spokesman of the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP, Christian Democrats) Dr. med Peter Liese on the news that the company Moderna has published results according to which its vaccine is even more effective than the vaccine from BioNTech/Pfizer. The company announced on Monday that they found a result of 94.5% in tests.

"As with BioNTech/Pfizer, this percentage still needs to be studied in detail and we will not have a vaccine until the European Medicines Agency has approved it. However, I expect this to happen in the next few weeks. The Moderna vaccine, although it is developed by an American company, will be partly produced in the EU and it is therefore good that the EU has already concluded preliminary contracts. I also expect the vaccine from the Swedish-British consortium AstraZeneca to be launched on the market in the next few weeks. I expect the results of the research to be published daily. Then we would have three vaccines to choose from already this year and we could start vaccinating risk groups and medical staff in January. All this shows that the EU is on the right track with the support of the companies and the preliminary contracts", Liese said.

A problem is that this good news is overshadowed by a very strange action by Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. He had sold a large part of his shares last week and made a profit of 5.6 million dollars. The company's explanation is, of course, that the sale was scheduled earlier, but that does not explain why the company sent out the press release last Monday of all days. The study protocol and the data would just as well have allowed to do this a few days earlier or a few days later. Biontech is a serious German medium-sized company. Pfizer is at least once not German and not a medium-sized company. Those responsible at Pfizer have not yet done enough to make it clear that everything is serious," Liese concluded.