Pharma giant Moderna has an update about the new coronavirus vaccine. The company while talking about the new version of the COVID-19 vaccine has said that it will have the ability to offer superior protection when compared to the original formulation of the shots. The new data is based on the antibodies that were generated with new boosters in the blood samples of the participants in the trial. Moderna in its press release said that it is planning to submit the data to the Food and Drug Administration in the upcoming weeks.
If things go as planned and the FDA gives a green signal then the doses of the new and updated vaccines and boosters would soon be rolled out by as soon as August, 2022. The recent announcement from Moderna has come just before a meeting between the regulator’s outside vaccine advisers which is expected to be held later in June, 2022. The meeting will determine some of the important decisions to be made around the COVID-19 boosters that could be administered during the fall.
Dr. Steven Hoge, the president at Moderna while talking to the investors said that they are aiming towards the upcoming fall season that could bring in new infections with respiratory viruses with SARS-COV-2. Hoge added that they are also concerned about the Omicron circulation and its subvariants. The data of Moderna has come from testing 50 microgram bivalent version of the vaccine. The current version of the vaccine is ‘monovalent’ that has been designed to target the original virus that has the ancestral strain.
The new booster doses of the vaccine will add the version of the vaccine that would be targeted towards the omicron variant. On the other hand Pfizer has also said that it is testing new versions of the COVID-19 vaccines. Meanwhile, the regulators have also been careful about the premature authorizing of the change in the shots while citing that there could be a possibility of emergence of new variants.
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