Moderna announces clinical trial data on updated Covid-19 vaccine

Moderna announced that clinical trial data from its research assay confirm its updated COVID-19 vaccine, which is pending approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the fall 2023 vaccination season, generates an 8.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies in humans against BA.2.86, a variant under monitoring. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that the highly mutated BA.2.86 variant may be more capable of causing infection in people who previously had COVID-19 or were vaccinated with previous vaccines, noting that updated COVID-19 vaccines may be effective in reducing severe disease and hospitalization. Public health authorities are vigilantly monitoring the BA.2.86 variant, a highly-mutated strain of COVID-19 with over 30 mutations as compared to prior Omicron strains, with some governments accelerating COVID-19 vaccination campaigns due to its potential to break through protective immunity generated from previous COVID-19 vaccination or infection. The emergence of BA.2.86, in addition to the growing prevalence of the EG.5 and FL1.5.1 variants, underscores the need for vaccination with an updated COVID-19 vaccine, which can help reduce severe disease and hospitalizations caused by current circulating strains. Moderna’s clinical trial data around its updated COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness against BA.2.86 have been shared with regulators and submitted for peer review publication.