Covid-19: Pfizer is preparing a powder version of its vaccine

In the face of Covid-19, hope has arisen around the world in recent days thanks to various announcements of dazzling advances in vaccine development, like the 95% effectiveness touted by Pfizer this week. If the laboratory has just submitted an application for official marketing authorization for its serum, a logistical challenge can still hamper its large-scale distribution. But an original solution is under study.

Its transport requires that it be stored at a temperature of -80 degrees Celsius. To facilitate its delivery, the Pfizer / BioNTech alliance therefore let it be known on Saturday that it was working on a second version: “We are considering several possibilities for new generation vaccines,” explained to the American site Business Insider – resumed in France by LCI – the scientific director of the group Mikael Dolsten. And to specify: “We will launch next year a vaccine in the form of powder. »A conditioning that would solve the problem of the low temperature required for the liquid.

Europe ready to be vaccinated

Moreover, such a solution would also reduce costs with easier storage. This would make it possible to distribute the vaccine also in countries which have less means than Europe, for example, which has put itself in battle order to organize an equitable distribution among the 27.

Only ten months after the sequencing of the new coronavirus, the application for authorization for the first version marks for the CEO of Pfizer Albert Bourla “a crucial step” in the frantic quest for a vaccine. And another American company, Moderna, is expected to do the same very soon.

What to hope that the first vaccines against Covid-19 can begin to be distributed from December in the United States and in the European Union, if they quickly obtain the green light from the health authorities concerned.