Novavax says its COVID-19 vaccine demonstrates 90 pct overall efficacy

WASHINGTON, June 14 (Xinhua) -- American biotechnology company Novavax announced Monday its COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated 100 percent protection against moderate and severe disease, and 90.4 percent efficacy overall in a late-stage clinical trial.

The Phase 3 study enrolled 29,960 participants across 119 sites in the United States and Mexico to evaluate efficacy, safety and immunogenicity, with an emphasis on recruiting a representative population of communities and demographic groups most impacted by the disease.

The vaccine, NVX-CoV2373, was also reported 93 percent efficacy against predominantly circulating Variants of Concern and Variants of Interest defined by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Preliminary safety data from the trial showed the vaccine to be generally well-tolerated. Serious and severe adverse events were low in number and balanced between vaccine and placebo groups.

"These data show consistent, high levels of efficacy and reaffirm the ability of the vaccine to prevent COVID-19 amid ongoing genetic evolution of the virus," said Gregory Glenn, president of research and development at Novavax.

The company intends to file for regulatory authorizations in the third quarter this year.

If approved, Novavax's vaccine will be the fourth COVID-19 vaccine authorized for emergency use in the Untied States, following vaccines from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson &Johnson.