Omicron-Specific Vaccine: Moderna Announces Positive Results

Cambridge (US): There’s good news from the Moderna front vis-à-vis COVID-19 vaccine.

The Massachusetts-based American pharmaceutical and biotechnology company on Wednesday announced positive results for its new vaccine which is meant to counter the original coronavirus as well as its Omicron variant.

The company claimed that the new vaccine can be its “lead candidate” for booster jab later this year, reports AFP.

A trial for the “bivalent” vaccine, conducted among 814 adults, showed that it produced 1.75 times more Omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies, which have the power to prevent infection, as compared to Moderna’s original vaccine Spikevax.

All participants in the trial had received three doses of Spikevax, whereas a little more than half of them thereafter got a fourth dose of the bivalent shot while the rest got another dose of Spikevax.

On testing antibody levels a month later, the group that was administered the new vaccine got slightly superior protection to the ancestral strain of COVID compared to Spikevax.

“We are thrilled… We want to be ready as early as August for shipping,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel told investors.

Omicron’s sub-variants like BA.4 and BA.5 have been dominant in the US from early 2022.

Moderna conceded that antibody levels will be lower against Omicron’s sub-variants, but believed it was still a superior booster than repeating Spikevax.

However, Moderna doesn’t yet have data on how the new booster will fare three months or six months down the line.