BioNTech application much more important for the EU than Moderna / Emergency authorisation in Great Britain and the USA not recommended for imitation/ Hungarian behaviour highly problematic/ Better two weeks of more careful examination than hasty marketing authorisation

Following the US manufacturer Moderna, the German manufacturer BioNTech has also submitted an application for authorisation of a corona vaccine to the European Medicines Agency. "This application by BioNTech is much more important for the EU because although Moderna produces in the EU, we will receive almost twice as much from the BioNTech vaccine. The European Commission has secured 160 million vaccine doses for Moderna and around 300 million doses for BioNTech. This was stated MEP Peter Liese, health policy spokesman of the largest group in the European Parliament (EPP Christian Democrats). Liese explained that the examination by the European Medicines Agency will take several weeks and asks all parties involved to be patient. "We will see that the UK and the US will probably bring the vaccine to the market in the next few days with the help of an emergency marketing authorisation.

Then many will wonder why this is not happening just as quickly in the EU. The reason is that in an emergency marketing authorisation, only a very rough estimate of the effects and side effects is made and the data is not analysed as precisely as in the conditional marketing authorisation that Moderna and BioNTech have applied for from the European Medicines Agency.

I think it is right to take another two or three weeks now so that the best experts in Europe can take a close look at the data and then make an informed decision. I have great confidence in the applicants, especially in BioNTech, but as the saying goes: 'Trust is good, control is better'. For a vaccination project of this size, two weeks of additional intensive testing should not be too much," says the doctor and MEP. The fact that Great Britain wants to grant emergency approval and does not wait for approval from the European Medicines Agency has nothing to do with Brexit  - after all, all European rules still apply in Great Britain until the end of December. Any other EU country would also have the option. One EU member state, however, uses the emergency approval for the Russian vaccine Sputnik. Peter Liese sharply criticised Hungary's behaviour. "Much less is known about the Russian vaccine than about the vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna. Personally, I would have the vaccines from BioNTech and Moderna administered to me as soon as the competent authorities give their approval. If I were a citizen of Hungary, I would not be vaccinated with the Sputnik vaccine", Liese concluded.