Moderna Reinforcement Candidate Shows Strong Response Against Omicron Sub-Variants

(Reuters) – Moderna Inc said on Wednesday that an updated version of its COVID-19 vaccine, designed to target the BA.1 omicron variant, also generated a strong immune response against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron lineages, of rapid spread, which have taken hold in the United States in recent weeks.

The vaccine, which Moderna hopes will be approved for use as a booster by the fall, is a bivalent vaccine designed to attack the original 2020 coronavirus and the early version of omicron.

Moderna said that although the injection elicited a weaker response against BA.4 and BA.5 than against BA.1, the data suggest that the new vaccine could produce “durable protection against the entire family of omicron variants.”

“This is a strong and potent antibody response,” Moderna’s chief medical officer, Paul Burton, told a news conference. “It’s probably long-lasting and I think the bottom line is that booster or primary vaccination with (the updated vaccine) could really be a turning point in our fight against the SARS-cov-2 virus.”

Moderna has been producing the updated vaccine on its own before regulatory approvals are granted, and CEO Stéphane Bancel said the company could start supplying the shot in August.

The company plans to submit applications to regulatory bodies in the coming weeks seeking approval of the vaccine – which it calls mRNA-1273.214 – for the fall season.

The BA.4 and BA.5 sublineages, which were added to the World Health Organization watch list in March and designated as variants of concern by the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, accounted for more than a third of US cases last week.

Pfizer and BioNTech are also testing several potential COVID-19 vaccines tailored to the variants, including a bivalent candidate similar to Moderna’s.

(Reporting by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt, Michael Erman in Maplewood, New Jersey, and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru. Editing in Spanish by Javier Leira)

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