Feds Probe Disputed Tip Pfizer Held Covid Vaccine Results Until After 2020 Vote

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan are probing a claim by British drugmaker GSK that Pfizer delayed announcing its COVID shot's success in 2020 until after that year's election, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter.

The report said on Wednesday that GSK's former head of vaccine development, Philip Dormitzer, who joined the company after working at rival Pfizer, had told his GSK colleagues about the delay.

However, Dormitzer has disputed that account.

"My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA's Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment. Any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine's development would be incorrect," he told Reuters in a statement.