UK approves Pfizer and Biontech coronavirus vaccine, to be available from next week

Dhwani Mehta FXStreet

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), the UK’s medical regulator, gave a green signal to the coronavirus vaccine co-developed by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc on Wednesday, concluding it’s both safe and effective.

The vaccine will be available in the UK from next week.

The UK joint committee confirmed the approval of the vaccine, adding that they will shortly publish its final advice for the vaccine distribution.

The Health Minister Matt Hancock was quick to respond, “this is fantastic news from the regulator on the Pfizer vaccine.”

Additional comments

“NHS stands ready, will start vaccinating next week.”

“This will be a challenging rollout due to specifics of storage.”

“We have plans in place to deal with those specifics.”

“We're expecting millions of doses for the whole of the UK by the end of the year.”

Market reaction

The above announcement was well-anticipated and failed to have any big market-moving impact. Although the S&P 500 futures trimmed losses while GBP/USD held onto mild gains around 1.3420.

Author

Dhwani Mehta

FXStreet

Residing in Mumbai (India), Dhwani is a Senior Analyst and Manager of the Asian session at FXStreet. She has over 10 years of experience in analyzing and covering the global financial markets, with specialization in Forex and commodities markets.

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