The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was fully approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration on Monday, making it the first coronavirus vaccine approved by the regulator.
The Pfizer vaccine was also the first shot to receive FDA Emergency Use Authorization last December, but the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine quickly followed with its own EUA a week later.
So will the Moderna vaccine also receive full approval from the FDA? And if so, when?
If all goes well, probably in the next couple weeks to a month. Here’s why:
- “Regulators are still reviewing Moderna’s application for full approval of its vaccine,” The New York Times reported on Monday. “That decision could take several weeks.”
- Moderna’s application for FDA approval was filed about about a month after Pfizer submitted its own — now approved — application, Chicago’s NBC 5 reported.
Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are similar
The Moderna vaccine and the freshly FDA-approved Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine use similar vaccine technology and are the most used coronavirus vaccines in the United States.
About 54% of fully vaccinated Americans received two Pfizer shots, while most others received a pair of doses of the Moderna vaccine, according to The New York Times.
- According to Yale Medicine, both Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use mRNA technology and have been have been shown to have “high efficacy at preventing symptomatic diseases.”
- “A previous study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are about 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 in real-world settings,” the Deseret News reported.
Earlier this month, both the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech were approved as a booster for qualified people with a compromised immune system.
- It’s the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s goal that vaccinated Americans will beginning receiving a booster mRNA vaccine this fall, or at least eight months after they received their second shot.