health canada’s announcement thursday that the pfizer, moderna and astrazeneca covid-19 vaccines had new names were met with a lot of confusion. why is the pfizer vaccine now being referred to as comirnaty, moderna as spikevax, and the astrazeneca vaccine, vaxzevria?
the answer actually signals a major step forward for those three vaccines. the companies are allowed to brand their vaccines the way they want to in canada because they’ve now officially been fully approved by health canada.
the vaccines were temporarily approved for use in december under
interim orders
— essentially, the agency ruled that they were safe enough to approve temporarily, given the need for immediate action to combat the significant risk of the covid-19 pandemic.
but on thursday, the vaccines received full approval. following that approval, health canada has ruled that the companies can advertise the vaccines under the names they chose for them. according to pharmaceutical industry news outlet
fierce pharma
, the news names — comirnaty, spikevax and vaxzevria — have been in use in some advertising in europe since june.
“today’s decision by health canada affirms the efficacy and safety profile of our vaccine at a time when it is urgently needed,” fabien paquette, pfizer canada’s vaccine lead,
said in a press release
.