Europe's medical agency eyes safety of 2 COVID-19 vaccines

The European Medicines Agency said it would convene a meeting on December 29 to decide if there is enough data about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for it to be approved.

The European Medicines Agency said it would convene a meeting on December 29 to decide if there is enough data about the safety and efficacy of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech for it to be approved. The agency also said on Tuesday it could decide as early as January 12 whether to approve an experimental COVID-19 vaccine developed by Moderna Inc.

In a statement the EU medicines regulator said it had already begun a "rolling review" of the vaccine based on laboratory data previously submitted by Moderna and would now assess data on how well the vaccine triggers an immune response and whether it is safe enough for broad use across Europe. The agency said that "if the data are robust enough to conclude on quality, safety and effectiveness," then it could approve the vaccine at a meeting scheduled for January 12.