Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine cleared for adolescents in U.S.

WASHINGTON — Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s COVID-19 vaccine was cleared for use in children age 12 to 15 in the U.S., paving the way for the mass vaccination of middleand high-school students before the next school year.

The Food and Drug Administration said in a statement Monday that it had expanded the shot’s original emergency use authorization to include adolescents 12 through 15 years of age.

“Today’s action allows for a younger population to be protected from COVID-19, bringing us closer to returning to a sense of normalcy and to ending the pandemic,” said Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock.

A group of advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will meet on Wednesday to make recommendations for administration of the shots. Kids could begin receiving them very rapidly after that.

While adolescent cases tend to be milder, kids can still spread the disease and child cases are responsible for a growing proportion of the U.S. total as more adults get vaccinated. Children may be a “remaining engine fueling the pandemic,” said William Gruber, Pfizer’s senior vice president of vaccine clinical research and development, in an interview. “It’s important for us to attack that.”

Pfizer’s two-shot vaccine was authorized in the U.S. for 16 and up last year. Shots made by Moderna Inc. and Johnson & Johnson are available to those 18 and older. Canada cleared use of the Pfizer-BioNTech shot for adolescents as young as 12 on May 5.

There are almost 17 million people who are 12 to 15 in the U.S., according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, or 5.3% of the U.S. population. Nearly half are people of color.

Expanding vaccine access to younger adolescents is expected to accelerate the immunization campaign, as public-health officials seek to curb fast-spreading variants and open schools. Other studies are exploring the vaccine’s use in even younger children. Those are expected to produce data toward the end of this year or early 2021.

“It’s extremely, extremely important from a public health perspective to be able to vaccinate them,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in an interview before the clearance. “It’s important they’re protected against disease, but also so they will not pass the disease to their households.”

Pfizer began recruiting younger adolescents into its final-stage vaccine trial in the late fall, before it secured efficacy results from those 16 and older. That early enrollment work meant the drug-maker was able to evaluate the shot in teens over the holiday season, when new cases of the virus were surging in the U.S., Gruber said.

In March, Pfizer and BioNTech said their vaccine was 100% effective in the 12-to-15 age group in a final-stage trial. In the 2,260 adolescents included in the trial, the shot produced antibodies exceeding the level seen in vaccinated young adults.

All 18 cases of COVID-19 recorded in the study were in adolescents who received a placebo, the companies said. Side effects were consistent with those experienced by 16to 25-year-olds.

Since 12- to 15-year-olds will be given the same vaccine as adults, the two-shot regimen will be priced the same. In the U.S., the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine costs $39 for a full course. Currently, the shots are paid for by the U.S. government, with no out-of-pocket cost for vaccine recipients.

New York-based Pfizer and Germany-based BioNTech launched vaccine studies in children 6 months to 11 years old in March.