- Moderna has said its updated COVID-19 vaccine booster protects better against several SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron.
- The booster was designed to target two variants—the original variant and the Beta variant.
- The redesigned vaccine also remained more effective against the Beta and Omicron variants 6 months after administration.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
The U.S. pharmaceutical company Moderna announced Tuesday that its updated mRNA COVID-19 booster had produced a better immune response in clinical trials against several SARS-CoV-2 variants, including Omicron and Delta.
The booster is a type of vaccine scientists call “bivalent,” which works by stimulating an immune response against two different antigens.
Moderna designed the new formula to target both the Beta variant, which surfaced in South Africa in July 2020, and the original variant of SARS-CoV-2. The boosters currently in use—from Moderna, Pfizer, and others—were only based on the original variant.
Named mRNA 1273.211, the vaccine was tested in 895 people. The preprint study was published on Research Square.
The company tested two doses for the booster: 50 micrograms (µg), or the same amount of viral RNA as the current boosters, and double that at 100 µg.
The participants who received the new booster with the 50-µg dose had a 2.20-fold increase in their neutralizing antibody titers against Omicron 28 days after. Six months later, the participants still had twice the level of antibodies they had compared with the original Moderna booster.
The booster also offered better protection against the Delta and Beta variants at the one-month mark.
Dr. Jacqueline Miller, vice president of the Infectious Diseases Department at Moderna, told the Associated Press that the company did not plan to file for authorization of this vaccine, but it would submit this data to the FDA to work on future vaccine candidates that target Omicron instead.
Moderna has been developing and testing an Omicron-specific booster and a bivalent booster (mRNA-1273.214) that combines an Omicron-specific vaccine and the original vaccine. The company says the data should be released in fall 2022.
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