F.D.A. Aims to Give Final Approval to Pfizer Vaccine by Early Next Month [View all]

[JoanofArgh]

WASHINGTON — With a new surge of Covid-19 infections ripping through much of the United States, the Food and Drug Administration has accelerated its timetable to fully approve Pfizer-BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine, aiming to complete the process by the start of next month, people involved in the effort said.

President Biden said last week that he expected a fully approved vaccine in early fall. But the F.D.A.’s unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had “taken an all-hands-on-deck approach” to the work.

Giving final approval to the Pfizer vaccine — rather than relying on the emergency authorization granted late last year by the F.D.A. — could help increase inoculation rates at a moment when the highly transmissible Delta variant of the virus is sharply driving up the number of new cases.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/03/us/politics/pfizer-vaccine-approval.html?campaign_id=60&emc=edit_na_20210803&instance_id=0&nl=breaking-news&ref=cta&regi_id=72416910&segment_id=65265&user_id=20a86bb77f8705e060212c90659bdb01