There have been a few developments since I last wrote about the front-runners in the COVID-19 vaccine race; BioNTech SE (BNTX) and Pfizer (PFE), Moderna (MRNA), and AstraZeneca (AZN) and Oxford. This article takes a look at recent progress as we near a readout from these studies.

Beginning with PFE & BNTX, the companies announced on September 12 that they were increasing enrolment of their late-stage study to about 44,000, up from an initial target enrolment of 30,000. There was some speculation regarding the reasons for this increase, a major theory is that the rate of COVID-19 infections is below expectations, meaning more subjects might need to be enrolled to show a difference between placebo and the vaccine. This wouldn't mean the vaccine is weaker than expected, just that participants in the trial, in both arms, are getting COVID-19 at a lesser rate than expected.

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