COVID-19: 1st Vaccine OK'ed in U.K. / Vaccine Study in Teens / Insufficient Evidence for Casirivimab + Imdevimab

By Kelly Young

Edited by Susan Sadoughi, MD, and Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, FACP, DFASAM

The U.K. has granted an emergency authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech's mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) against SARS-CoV-2.

The companies expect the first doses to arrive in the U.K. in the coming days, and they have agreed to provide the country with a total of 40 million doses through 2021. They have also submitted requests for vaccine approval to the U.S. and other countries.

In other COVID-19 news:

• Moderna is expected to start testing its vaccine in adolescents soon, the New York Times reports.

• The National Institutes of Health's COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines Panel says there is not enough evidence to recommend for or against use of casirivimab (previously REGN10933) plus imdevimab (previously REGN10987) for COVID-19. The recombinant monoclonal antibodies received emergency use authorization in November for outpatients with mild-to-moderate COVID-19. The regimen should not be considered the standard of care, the panel says, and outpatients at high risk for COVID-19 progression should be prioritized to receive it.