Pfizer postpones COVID-19 vaccine emergency use request for children under 5

Pfizer will delay asking the Food and Drug Administration to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine for children under age 5 until it has clinical trial data on a third dose in this age group, which it expects in early April.

“Given that the study is advancing at a rapid pace, the companies will wait for the three-dose data as Pfizer and BioNTech continue to believe it may provide a higher level of protection in this age group,” the company said. “This is also supported by recent observations of three dose booster data in several other age groups that seems to meaningfully augment neutralizing antibody levels and real world vaccine protection for omicron compared to the two-dose regimen.”