Pfizer requests expansion of vaccine to adolescents, looks to start vaccinations before next school year

After recently unveiling positive trial results, Pfizer and BioNTech are looking to get their COVID-19 vaccine approved for use in adolescents between 12 and 15 before the next school year.

Pfizer announced Friday that it has submitted a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to approve its COVID-19 vaccine for use in adolescents between the ages of 12 and 15.

The request came after the companies last week said a phase 3 study showed the vaccine, which has already been approved for those 16 and older, to be 100 percent effective in this age group. The study consisted of 2,260 adolescents between 12 and 15, and there were no COVID-19 cases reported among the group that was vaccinated, with the vaccine demonstrating "robust antibody responses, exceeding those recorded earlier in vaccinated participants aged 16 to 25 years old," the companies said.

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Pfizer's goal, it says, is to make the vaccine available to adolescents between 12 and 15 before the start of the 2021 school year. Meanwhile, according to NBC News, the company is also studying the vaccine in children between 6 months and 11 years old, and the first participants in that trial were dosed last month.