Clinical trials of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine have shown an efficacy of 89.3%, the US biotech company said in a statement Thursday posting the results of phase 3 trials involving more than 15,000 people.
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“NVX-CoV2373 has the potential to play an important role in solving this global public health crisis,” said company CEO Stanley Erck.
But the positive news was offset by the joint announcement that the vaccine is much less effective against the variant first identified in South Africa, which scientists consider to be more contagious.