Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine now 95 per cent effective

A COVID-19 vaccine candidate being developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech SE (NASDAQ: BNTZ) has demonstrated efficacy of 95 per cent following Phase 3 trials.

Efficacy was consistent across age, gender, race and ethnicity demographics, and the vaccine is effective in adults over 65 years of age in 94 per cent of cases.

There were 10 severe cases of COVID-19 observed in the trial, with nine of the cases occurring in the placebo group and one in the vaccinated group.

The pharmaceutical company has developed a specially designed, temperature-controlled thermal shippers using dry ice to maintain temperature conditions of minus 70°C.

Pfizer says these containers can be used for 15 days by refilling with dry ice, and each includes a GPS-enabled thermal sensor to track the location and temperature of each vaccine shipment across their pre-set routes.

"The study results mark an important step in this historic eight-month journey to bring forward a vaccine capable of helping to end this devastating pandemic," Pfizer chairman and CEO Dr Albert Borula said.

"We continue to move at the speed of science to compile all the data collected thus far and share with regulators around the world.

"With hundreds of thousands of people around the globe infected every day, we urgently need to get a safe and effective vaccine to the world."

Pfizer is expecting to produce 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses by the end of 2021.

Earlier this month the Australian Federal Government announced it had secured 10 million doses of Pfizer's vaccine candidate.

Australia has also secured 40 million doses of the Novavax nanoparticle vaccine and 51 million doses of a vaccine candidate developed by CSL (ASX: CSL) and the University of Queensland.

Updated at 10.00am AEDT on 19 November 2020.