Stock markets soared on Monday after German pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said early data suggests its COVID-19 vaccine seems safe and effective, raising hopes that the world economy is now one step closer to getting back to normal.
Markets were already sharply higher on the U.S. election result when Pfizer said that data shows vaccine shots may be 90 per cent effective at preventing COVID-19, indicating the company is on track this month to file an emergency use application with U.S. regulators.
The vaccine candidate, known as BNT162, "has emerged as a front-runner in the tight race, and the latest data were encouraging, though logistical and supply chain challenges remain," said Cinney Zhang, a pharmaceutical industry analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
Pfizer's shares gained 15 per cent. Its vaccine partner BioNTech did even better, up 25 per cent.
The companies said in a release early Monday morning that out of roughly 44,000 people in the Phase 3 trial of the vaccine, only 94 have contracted the virus, and there are no serious side effects reported so far. This "raises the hope that the patient demographics will be broad enough for an early approval," Zhang said.
Any economic recovery depends on checking the pandemic, and investors pounced upon the news. Pfizer's data is only preliminary and does not mean a vaccine is imminent. Getting the vaccine to billions of people will be a massive undertaking, even if it is approved.