Moderna Inc said its Covid-19 vaccine was 94.5 percent effective in a preliminary analysis of a large late-stage clinical trial, another sign that a fast-paced hunt by scientists and pharmaceutical companies is paying off with potent new tools that could help control a worsening pandemic.
The highly positive readout comes just a week after a similar shot developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE was found to be more than 90 percent effective in an interim analysis. Both shots rely on a technology called messenger RNA that has never been used to build an approved vaccine. Soon, millions of people around the world could be spared from illness by the breakthroughs.
A preliminary analysis of data from more than 30,000 volunteers showed Moderna’s vaccine prevented virtually all symptomatic cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, the company said in a statement on Monday.
Moderna shares rose 12 percent in pre-market U.S. trading, while in Europe, the Stoxx 600 Index was up 1.4 percent. The rally in global shares following the news represented about $120 billion in market value added to the MSCI All Country World Index.