ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The Food and Drug Administration approved the first COVID-19 vaccine since vaccines were released to the public in December 2020.
The newly approved COVID-19 vaccine, most known as Pfizer-BioNTech, will now be marketed as Comirnaty (pronounced “koe-mir-na-tee”) for the prevention of COVID-19 disease in individuals 16 and older, the FDA says.
The vaccine is also still available under emergency use authorization, including for younger individuals 12 to 15 years old and for the administration of a third dose in people who are immunocompromised.
The brand name, Comirnaty, is a mashup of many terms that come to mind when understanding the pandemic: COVID-19, mRNA, community and immunity, Pfizer said.
"The FDA’s approval of this vaccine is a milestone as we continue to battle the COVID-19 pandemic," Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock said. "While this and other vaccines have met the FDA’s rigorous, scientific standards for emergency use authorization, as the first FDA-approved COVID-19 vaccine, the public can be very confident that this vaccine meets the high standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality the FDA requires of an approved product."
Comirnaty contains messenger RNA (mRNA), a kind of genetic material, according to the FDA. The mRNA is used by the body to make a mimic of one of the proteins in the virus that causes COVID-19. The result of a person receiving this vaccine is that their immune system will ultimately react defensively to the virus that causes COVID-19.