Novel vaccines typically take 8 years of clinical development: Study

As the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prepares to evaluate the first of the COVID-19 vaccine candidates, a group of researchers found that the traditional evaluation of novel vaccines has taken about 12 months and, in most cases, was based on at least two pivotal efficacy trials.

Those trials enrolled a median of about 5,000 patients who were followed for 6 months to determine safety, the researchers found.