The German biotech BioNTech SE has joined forces with Pfizer Inc to co-develop a candidate prophylactic vaccine against infection from the coronavirus 2019-nCoV which has affected 167,515 people globally as of 16 March and resulted in 6,606 deaths.
The agreement was announced by both companies on 17 March and aims to accelerate development of BioNTech’s vaccine for the disease, BNT162, which is a messenger RNA (mRNA) molecule. The candidate vaccine is expected to enter clinical testing by the end of April.