• Discovering a vaccine for Covid-19 is moving at lightning speed.
• Moderna, Pfizer and Inovio have already started clinical trials. Moderna, Pfizer and many more leading CEOs.
• Yet guaranteeing the safety and efficacy of a Covid-19 vaccine, and ramping up production and distribution, will most likely push the time frame to the end of 2021, says Dale Fisher, chair of the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network.
• The virus has already claimed the lives of 259,796 people from around the world.
• For more in-depth coverage from our CNBC anchors and reporters with health-care CEOs and industry leaders,

Scientists are scrambling to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, which has already claimed the lives of 259,796 people from around the world.

More than ever before, pharma, biotechs, start-ups, research institutes and universities are working together to develop a vaccine and identify new therapies to treat the symptoms of this disease. Moderna, Pfizer and Inovio have already started clinical trials. Moderna, Pfizer and many more leading CEOs will be speaking at CNBC’s Healthy Returns Virtual Summit on May 12.

According to Dale Fisher, chair of the World Health Organization’s Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network, however, we most likely won’t see a vaccine until the end of 2021. That’s because of the Phase 2 and 3 trials that are necessary to guarantee both safety and efficacy and the need to ramp up production and distribution, he says.

CNBC’s Meg Tirrell has been following the developments closely since the outbreak was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. Here, the senior health and science reporter shares her insights on the most promising vaccines and treatments in development right now and how the coronavirus pandemic may affect drug development in the future.

President Donald Trump made headlines this weekend, saying he believes the U.S. will have a vaccine for the coronavirus by the end of the year. In your discussions with pharmaceutical companies, what timeline are they giving now?

The timelines pharmaceutical companies are talking about for Covid-19 vaccines would set records many times over. Pfizer, which is partnered with German biotech company BioNTech, said this week it aims to have millions of doses ready by the end of this year, and hundreds of millions next year. That’s if all goes well with safety and efficacy testing in thousands of people before then.

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/07/timeline-on-covid-19-vaccine-and-treatments-under-development-now.html