by Chris Black
It’s just in your face at this point.
No one has ever heard of this alleged virus, but now they’re injecting pregnant women with their brand new vax because… because pregnant women are dying left and right from viruses?
Is that happening?
U.S. drugmaker Pfizer (PFE.N) is ready to launch its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine for both older adults and pregnant women in the United States and Europe later this year, executives said on Thursday.
Both Pfizer and British drugmaker GSK (GSK.L) have RSV vaccines they hope to launch in the United States and Europe this year, pending regulators’ approval.
“We are anticipating approval in both the U.S. and Europe in time for rollout in the fall,” Kena Swanson, Pfizer head of viral vaccines research & development, told a media briefing at the company’s biggest manufacturing and packaging site globally.
RSV is a leading cause of pneumonia in infants and the elderly, and decades of research have finally resulted in the two successful vaccines Pfizer and GSK are racing to introduce.
Some 14,000 people die annually in the United States of the lower respiratory tract disease caused by the virus, and analysts see a multibillion-dollar market for the vaccine by the end of the decade.