(Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will organize meetings with independent group of experts to review data of coronavirus vaccine candidates and advice the agency, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said on Wednesday.
“The meetings will reinforce the transparency of the process as FDA reviews data from trials now underway,” Hahn said in a post on Twitter. (https://bit.ly/2YYBHI0)
The statement comes after U.S. President Donald Trump last month accused members, without evidence, of a so-called “deep state” working within the FDA of complicating efforts to test COVID-19 vaccines in order to delay results until after the Nov. 3 presidential election.
The FDA last week said it will hold a meeting of its advisory committee to address the general development of COVID-19 vaccines on Oct. 22.
While several drugmakers including AstraZeneca Plc and Moderna Inc are conducting late-stage studies of their experimental coronavirus vaccines, there are no U.S.-approved vaccines for the novel coronavirus.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
