GENEVA (Reuters) -Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine will be reviewed on April 30 by technical experts for possible WHO emergency-use listing, a World Health Organization spokesman told Reuters.
“We are discussing the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine on Friday…,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said in reply to a query. A decision on the U.S. drugmaker’s vaccine, now being evaluated under the abridged procedure on the basis of prior review by the European Medicines Agency, was expected in one to four days after that, Lindmeier said.
So far COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have received WHO approval, which is a signal to national regulatory authorities on a product’s safety and efficacy.
The WHO committee of technical experts were on Monday reviewing the COVID-19 vaccine of Chinese drugmaker Sinopharm and is due to review the Sinovac product at its next meeting on May 3, according to the WHO.
Stephane Bancel, Moderna CEO, told an event last Friday that it was on track to make up to 1 billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year and 1.4 billion next year.
“We’re in the final stretch to get an agreement with COVAX,” Bancel said, referring to the vaccine-sharing facility run by the GAVI Vaccine Alliance and WHO to bring doses to lower income countries.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Emma Farge and Mark Heinrich)
