Pfizer up 8.5%; parent firm's potential Covid-19 drug shows positive result

Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech are in a race with companies including AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc. to come up with a safe and effective vaccine against Covid-19

Shares of Pfizer India jumped 8.5 per cent to Rs 4,313.4 apiece on the BSE on Thursday after the company's US-arm said that one of its Covid-19 vaccines showed encouraging results in very early testing of 45 people.

At 9:50 am, the stock was ruling 5 per cent higher at Rs 4,176.85 on the BSE, as against 365 points, or 1 per cent, gain in the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex. A combined 145,933 shares have changed hands on the counter on NSE and BSE till the time of writing of this report.

Study volunteers given either a low or medium dose of