The US pharmaceutical company Moderna has presented the first positive data on a vaccine designed to protect specifically against the omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2. It is a combination of the conventional Moderna vaccine Spikevax and a candidate developed against Omicron. This mix is intended to be administered as a booster dose.
The provisional and only as a press release According to available data, the new product elicits a stronger immune response against Omicron than the original Moderna vaccine. The level of neutralizing antibodies was on average 1.75 times that of the conventional vaccine. The company said the tolerability of both vaccines was comparable.
The new vaccine was tested on more than 400 adults and a control group of just under 400 participants. All had previously received three shots of the old Moderna vaccine.
The company intends to submit applications to the approval authorities in the coming weeks and hopes to be able to offer the boosters from late summer. What is certain is that adapted vaccines are eagerly awaited.
It is not yet clear how long the effectiveness will last
Federal Health Minister Karl Lauterbach (SPD) said on Deutschlandfunk on Thursday that he was expecting adapted corona vaccines in autumn and was confident that there would be very good vaccines of this type. Lauterbach called the data from Moderna “promising”. The federal government had previously announced that it wanted to order doses of the new Moderna vaccine. Germany has already secured stocks at Pfizer and Biontech, who also intend to present data on an Omicron vaccine in the near future.
The vaccine should also be welcome in the United States. the New York Times quotes Anthony Fauci, senior White House adviser, as saying that the FDA probably wants as many irons in the fire as it can. The authority would probably have to decide on the basis of laboratory data and animal experiments.
In fact, the adapted Moderna vaccine has not gone through a classic clinical trial phase to compare the number of infections in both groups. It is also still unclear how long its effectiveness could last. Antibody levels were measured one month after the fourth shot was administered. Moderna only wants to present data in late summer that show how high the antibodies are after three months.
Finally, it is not known how well the vaccine helps against omicron subvariants. It was developed against the original Omicron variant, which was first discovered late last year. In the meantime, however, this variant has split into several subtypes. The sub-variant BA.5 in particular is currently increasing. In South Africa and Portugal it has led to rapidly increasing numbers of infections. Experts expect a similar development in other countries. In Germany, BA.5 was recently detected in five percent of all samples analyzed. The subvariant was found in every tenth sample across the EU.
BA.5 appears to be particularly effective at evading the antibody response elicited by previous infection with another omicron variant or vaccination. It remains to be seen to what extent this immune escape will continue after administration of the new vaccine.