Shares of Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) were sliding 6.2% lower as of 11:41 a.m. EDT on Wednesday. Two factors appeared to be behind the biotech stock's decline. First, the FDA issued an update on Tuesday that could mean no COVID-19 vaccine will be approved until next year. Second, Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) and BioNTech (NASDAQ: BNTX) announced positive results from a phase 1/2 study of COVID-19 vaccine candidate BNT162b1.
Some investors had hoped that Moderna could potentially win FDA approval for its mRNA-1273 COVID-19 vaccine before the end of 2020. Those hopes appear distant now. The FDA's update on Tuesday underscored that the agency doesn't plan to relax its requirements for approval in any way because of the urgent need for a COVID-19 vaccine.
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