Novavax announces its COVID-19 vaccine is over 90% effective against symptomatic disease

Novavax announced Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective against symptomatic disease in late-stage clinical trials.

LONDON -- American biotechnology company Novavax announced Monday that its experimental COVID-19 vaccine was more than 90% effective against symptomatic disease in late-stage clinical trials. Results from the Phase 3 trial, which enrolled nearly 30,000 participants across 119 sites in the United States and Mexico, show Novavax's recombinant protein-based vaccine, called NVX-CoV2373, provided 100% protection against moderate and severe cases of COVID-19, with an overall efficacy of 90.4%, according to a company press release. "Today, Novavax is one step closer to addressing the critical and persistent global public health need for additional COVID-19 vaccines," Stanley Erck, president and CEO of Novavax, said in a statement Monday. "These clinical results reinforce that NVX-CoV2373 is extremely effective and offers complete protection against both moderate and severe COVID-19 infection." Researchers observed a total of 77 cases of COVID-19 in the randomized, placebo-controlled, observer-blinded study. There were 63 cases in the placebo group and 14 in the vaccine group. Ten were moderate and four were severe, all in the placebo group. All cases in the vaccine group were mild, Novavax said.