On Aug. 12, 2020, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that preliminary, peer-reviewed data from their BNT162 mRNA-based vaccine development program, Project Lightspeed, against SARS-CoV-2, were published online in the journal Nature.

These preliminary clinical data on BNT162b1, a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (modRNA) candidate that encodes an optimized SARS-CoV-2 receptor binding domain (RBD) antigen, showed that BNT162b1 was administered in a dose that was well tolerated and generated dose-dependent immunogenicity, as measured by RBD-binding IgG concentrations and SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing titers.