GSK’s vaccine against RSV wins FDA approval

Yahoo Finance’s Anjalee Khemlani joins the Live show to discuss the FDA’s approval of GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) vaccine against RSV.

Video transcript

- A new GlaxoSmithKline vaccine is approved to fight a lung illness called RSV. That go ahead from the Food and Drug Administration opening the doors for the drugmaker to seek approval worldwide. Here with more on the medical space, Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani. Anjalee?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's right, Ines. So GSK's new RSV vaccine is the first approved for the disease worldwide, and that's a really big move for the company. That's why you can see the stock getting a boost from that as of yesterday when the FDA gave the green light. Now, this vaccine showed 82% efficacy in phase III trials, and that's important, because it is for older adults. That's anyone ages 60 and older.

Now, there are three different groups that this virus affects, and that is younger kids. So you're looking at the under two group typically do get this virus, as well as the older population. There's also a vaccine in the works by Pfizer for the older age group. They're expected to get their approval sometime later this month, and then Moderna is also in on it with one of their own candidates for the older age group.

Pfizer also has one from the maternal population that is set to get approval sometime later this year, so you're looking at two vaccines launching this year for this space. Really big news, because this has been an area that has been lagging and needing a vaccine for over 60 years. So really big news in that space.