Nine pharmaceutical companies commit to guarantee the safety of the vaccine for covid-19

Novavax's experimental vaccines in Maryland.ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

Nine pharmaceutical companies have pledged that the vaccine for covid-19 will be safe and effective.

The top managers of drug companies have signed an agreement to ensure that experimentation and production of the drug will follow "high ethical standards and scientific principles."

The pronouncement of the firms occurs in the midst of an international race to obtain a preparation that calms the advance of the coronavirus pandemic and when political pressure increases in the United States, due to the presidential elections on November 3.

• The WHO moderates its expectations and believes that the covid-19 vaccine will not be massively available before 2022

The companies have explained, in a statement, that they will not request authorization for their drug in any country until they are sure that it is completely "effective and safe."

They have also stated that the well-being of the patients participating in the trials will be a priority and that they will ensure that they take the next steps based on their ability to produce sufficient doses.

Pharmaceutical companies with long-standing rivalries have sat at the table: Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, BioNTech, GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Novavax and Sanofi.

"We believe that this commitment will help ensure public confidence in the rigorous scientific and regulatory process by which COVID-19 vaccines are evaluated and ultimately approved," adds the text, signed by the companies, of various nationalities.

In recent weeks, US President Donald Trump has ignited the debate about how quickly the vaccine will be available to the public.

Trump, without any proof, has assured that the drug will be ready before November 3 to convince voters to reelect him.

"We will have a vaccine soon, perhaps before a special date," he said last Monday in a meeting with the press at the White House.

"They know what date I'm talking about," he insisted.

The president has also pressured US officials to speed up the approval processes for COVID-19 treatments.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, for its acronym in English) advised states in the last week that they should be prepared for the distribution of the vaccine in the last weeks of October and the first days of November.

The approval in the US will be in the hands of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA, for its acronym in English), which could authorize emergency use of the vaccine.

Stephen Hann, director of the FDA, acknowledged in August that he would be willing to approve the use of the vaccine before clinical trials end.

The pharmaceutical companies have insisted that they will make sure to complete phase 3 of the clinical trials - the largest and in which thousands of patients participate - before seeking approval from the health authorities of any country.

The WHO has warned this Wednesday that it does not believe that the vaccine will reach the world population en masse until 2022.

"The agency [FDA] requires that scientific evidence for regulatory approval come from large, high-quality, randomized, and observer-blinded clinical trials, with the expectation of appropriately designed studies with a significant number of participants in diverse populations." settled all nine companies.

All participating firms are working on the vaccine, although they are in different stages.

Pfizer in alliance with BioNTech, as well as Moderna are already in phase 3 and experimenting with thousands of patients.

AstraZeneca suspended its trials, which were also in phase 3, this week after a patient fell ill.

Johnson & Johnson still has its drug in phase 2, while GlaxoSmithKline is in the first phase.

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