Moderna lags behind Pfizer in approving the COVID-19 vaccine for teens

The company Moderna (MRNA) said on Sunday that it would postpone the application for emergency use of a smaller dose of its COVID-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12 to 17 years until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) completes its study.

Back on May 25, Moderna reported that the results of its study showed that its vaccine against Covid-19 was 100% effective when used in children aged 12 to 17 years. Then in June, the company applied for emergency use of its vaccine for teenagers.

In a statement, Moderna said on Sunday that the FDA would need time to evaluate international analyses of the risks of rare cardiac inflammation (myocarditis) in adolescents after vaccination. According to the company, I completed this review no earlier than January 2022.

That will receive regulatory approval for using the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine among adolescents later than the approval of the Pfizer (PFE)/BioNTech (BNTX) children’s vaccine, which is as early as this week.

Shares of Moderna increased by 230.4% beginning of 2021, rose by 5.7% last week but closed with a decline in the postmarket on Friday by 2%.

Pfizer shares, which have increased by 18.8% since the beginning of 2021, rose 1.3% last Friday.

The FDA on Friday approved a vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech for children aged 5 to 11 years. The children’s dosage is a third of the adult dose.

The U.S. government has signed a deal to purchase 50 million doses of Pfizer vaccine for children, sufficient to fully vaccinate almost all 28 million children aged 5 to 11 years in the United States.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, as of October 21, nearly 6.3 million children have tested positive for Covid since the start of the pandemic.

However, health experts say that number is probably much higher. The Covid-19 coronavirus is the eighth leading cause of death in children aged 5 to 11 over the past year; a CDC representative told the FDA committee on Tuesday.