(Dec. 2) Watch live as the Department of Defense and Department of Health and Human Services hosts an on-camera telephone briefing with senior officials on Operation Warp Speed and COVID-19 vaccine distribution at the Pentagon on Wednesday, December 2, 2020.
The U.K.’s quick approval of the Covid vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE means Britons will get first dibs on a shot developed in two other countries -- the U.S. and Germany.
Britain’s drug regulator on Wednesday cleared the vaccine for emergency use, ahead of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and its European Union counterpart. The government cited a rule allowing the U.K. to authorize a shot independently before the end of the Brexit transition period on Dec. 31. An accelerated review process in which regulators were able to monitor Pfizer’s trial data in real-time also helped.
The U.K.’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency “has done a great job of working with the company to look at that data as it’s come through and do things in parallel, rather than one after the other as they normally would,” Health Secretary Matt Hancock said in a radio appearance. He also credited Brexit, though the MHRA said the speedy authorization was conducted within EU guidelines.
The move is particularly striking because BioNTech, which pioneered the messenger RNA technology behind the vaccine, is based in Germany and received 375 million euros ($450 million) in funding from its government. Pfizer, meanwhile, has a deal to supply the U.S. with 100 million doses, though it didn’t receive direct research support from the White House-led Operation Warp Speed Project.
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