“I’m not going to prejudge what the advisory committee – which is a non-binding committee of scientific experts – will say to us. We’ll have to see what the scientific and medical discussion is today,” US Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie Thursday, when asked if authorization of Pfizer’s vaccine could come as early as today or tomorrow.
The FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee is meeting today to consider emergency use authorization for Pfizer and BioNTech's coronavirus vaccine.
“Our plan is to take their recommendations into account for our decision making, and make a decision shortly thereafter,” Hahn continued. “Again, it really depends upon the complexity of the issues discussed, but we intend to act quickly.”
When asked about if the committee could raise questions or say that decisions need to be delayed – and whether the FDA could decide to move forward anyway – Hahn said that scenarios like that have been experienced by the agency.
“We have the advisory committee to get outside opinions about this. We think it’s very important for transparency,” he said, adding that the FDA is the only regulatory agency in the world that has such public data vetting.
“But we’ll make that decision. Our scientific experts will make that decision,” Hahn said.