The European Union has reached an agreement with the American biotechnology company Moderna for the supply of its candidate vaccine, announced the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
Last week, the company announced that its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective in protecting against Covid-19, based on the intermediate results of the last phase of clinical trials.
"I am pleased to announce that tomorrow we will approve a new contract to secure another vaccine," said Ursula von de Layen, adding that the agreement "allows us to purchase up to 160 million doses of vaccine produced by Moderna."
In August, the European Commission, which is leading talks with companies on behalf of EU member states, announced that preliminary talks had been completed with a view to signing a contract for the supply of 80 million doses of its vaccine, and purchase of an additional 80 million installments.
This is the European Union's sixth agreement with production companies to provide vaccines against Covid-19.
The European Commission has already signed five vaccine supply contracts: with the Swedish-British AstraZeneca, the American Johnson & Johnson (for the supply of up to 400 million doses each), the French-British duo Sanofi-GSK (up to 300 million doses each) Pfizer-BioNTech duo (up to 300 million doses) and the German CureVac (up to 405 million doses).
Deliveries will, however, take place when these vaccines are evaluated as safe and effective. The marketing of each vaccine in the European Union depends on the green light of the competent regulatory authority, the European Medicines Agency (EMA).
The first installments are expected to be available in the European Union in early 2021.