evidence: The VRC worked with a company called Moderna to use this information to quickly customize their prototype approach to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. By early February, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate had been designed and manufactured. This vaccine is called mRNA-1273. By March 16, 2020, this vaccine had entered the first phase of clinical trials. Other vaccines, including a similar one from Pfizer and BioNTech SE, entered clinical trials not long after. On December 18, 2020, after demonstrating 94 percent efficacy, the NIH-Moderna vaccine was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use. Just days earlier, the similar Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine had become the first COVID-19 vaccine to be authorized for use in the United States. [...] Moderna, Inc. (n.d.). Moderna’s Work on a COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate. Retrieved December 10, 2020, from https://www.modernatx.com/modernas-work-potential-vaccine-against-covid-19