European Medicines Agency hacking: Pfizer-BioNTech confirm vaccine documents 'unlawfully accessed'
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The EMA has still not disclosed who caused the attack and exactly how much damage was done during the attack.
After the European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was targeting in a cyber attack, US pharma giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech said its coronavirus vaccine was "unlawfully accessed" with documents relating the vaccine being accessed.
EMA is the chief European regulator responsible for approving the coronavirus vaccine. The EMA has still not disclosed who caused the attack and exactly how much damage was done during the attack. The EMA had said that it was investigating the cyber attack along with law enforcement agencies.
The EMA has stipulated December 29 as the date to review the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine which is already being underway in Britain. Moderna's vaccine will be reviewed by January 12 by the European medicine agency.
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Pfizer said it was "unaware of any personal data being accessed" as BioNTech declared that "unaware that any study participants have been identified through the data being accessed."
"The EMA has assured us that the cyberattack will have no impact on the timeline for its review," both two companies assured.
Earlier this year Britain had accused Russian-based hackers of targeting labs conducting coronavirus vaccine research with reports claiming in the Spanish media that with Spanish laboratories reportedly being attacked by Chinese cybercriminals.
According to the Wall Street Journal, cybercriminals had tried to attack pharmaceutical companies developing vaccines including Johnson & Johnson, Novavax, AstraZeneca and South Korean laboratories.