First mRNA COVID-19 vaccines authorised
- Date
- 11 December 2020
- Category
- Science, technology & invention
- Region
- Global
- Era
- Contemporary
- Significance
On 11 December 2020 the United States Food and Drug Administration granted emergency use authorisation to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, the first messenger-RNA (mRNA) vaccine ever authorised for use in humans; the United Kingdom had begun rolling out the same vaccine days earlier, and the European Medicines Agency followed on 21 December.
Developed at unprecedented speed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, mRNA vaccines work by delivering genetic instructions that prompt cells to produce a fragment of the coronavirus spike protein, training the immune system to recognise the virus. Built on decades of prior research, the platform moved from the virus's genetic sequencing in early 2020 to authorised vaccines within about a year, far faster than any previous vaccine. A second mRNA vaccine from Moderna was authorised shortly afterward. The vaccines were administered to billions of people worldwide and are credited with preventing many millions of deaths. Their success validated mRNA as a flexible vaccine and therapeutic technology now being pursued against other infectious diseases and cancers; Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman received the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for foundational discoveries enabling the approach.
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Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Science
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