A scientist who helped develop a COVID-19 vaccine candidate with U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer that displayed more than a 90 percent efficacy rate in interim clinical trials, says he is confident his vaccine will put an end to the pandemic.

Speaking to The Guardian on Thursday, Ugur Sahin, co-founder and CEO of German company BioNTech, said he is optimistic because he believes that even protection from just symptomatic infections will have a dramatic effect.

On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their jointly developed vaccine candidate had outperformed expectations in the crucial Phase Three trials, proving 90 percent effective in stopping people from falling ill.

However, it remains uncertain whether the vaccine is also effective for those with asymptomatic infections.

Sahin said the most effective candidate from the trials attacked the virus "in more ways than one," by hindering it from gaining access to human cells, and having the T-cells attack and eliminate it, even if it manages to enter the body.