The European Medicines Agency (EMA) plans to approve the COVID-19 vaccine candidate jointly developed by Pfizer and BioNTech on December 23, Bild reported on Tuesday. According to sources from the European Commission and the German government, the mass inoculation in Germany might start before the end of the year. The possible date of the vaccine rollout cited by the newspaper is December 26.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has already been authorized for public use in the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. Earlier this week, New York became the first state in the US to perform a vaccination against the disease. Today's report confirms earlier estimates made by the Spanish Health Ministry, in which December 29 was mentioned as the date of the vaccine approval.

Pfizer's stocks made slight gains in the premarket trade following the report, trading 0.71% higher at $39.49 per share. At the same time, BioNTech surged 5.67% ahead of the session to go for $114.41 a share. Stocks of both companies skyrocketed since the start of the year, boosted by positive sentiment surrounding COVID-19 vaccine research.