‘A great day for humanity’ – and not bad for the stock market either | Nils Pratley

We mustn't get carried away but the strong reaction to the Pfizer-BioNTec trial results makes sense

A great day for science and humanity," said the Pfizer chief executive, Albert Bourla. It was a decent one for stock markets too. The FTSE 100 index rose almost 5% as the US firm and its German partner, BioNTech, reported promising initial results from their Covid vaccine trial.

There is an obvious danger of getting carried away - of assuming that rapid vaccine development is now a breeze - but the strong market reaction makes sense. For starters, though the tone around the Pfizer-BioNTech trial has been bullish for weeks, the first batch of data was far better than hoped. A 90% efficacy rate is a very strong number in any phase 3 clinical trial.