Moderna announces that it has submitted a vaccine for a specific variant, mRNA-1273.351, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for clinical research
Moderna sent its vaccine doses for the specific variant, mRNA-1273.351, against the SARS-CoV-2 variant first identified in South Africa, to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for clinical research
The company presented two strategies for handling the worrisome variants.
The company is looking into strengthening the vaccine doses in order to increase the capacity of the neutralizing antibody effect of the vaccine. Moderna examines three approaches to increase immunity:
- mRNA-1273.351: vaccine dose specific for the variant first identified in South Africa;
- mRNA-1273.211: a complex vaccine dose that combines mRNA-1273, Moderna's approved vaccine against the original strains and mRNA-1273.351 in one vaccine;
- A third vaccine dose of mRNA-1273: Moderna's vaccine against COVID-19, at a dose of 50 μg, as a booster.
- The company plans to test mRNA-1273.351 and mRNA-1273.211 as main vaccine series for those who have not yet been vaccinated.
increasing production
"We look forward to starting the clinical study of boosting immunity against the variants and we thank the National Institutes of Health for their continued cooperation in fighting this epidemic," said Stephan Bansel, CEO of Moderna. "We are leveraging the flexibility of the mRNA platform, and are making rapid progress in research to examine updates to the vaccine doses that are designed to respond against the new variants of the virus. Moderna is committed to updating the versions of the vaccine as needed until the epidemic is under control. We hope to show that boosting immunity, if required, can also be done in smaller doses, which will allow us to provide many more doses to the global community in late 2021 and 2022 if needed."
Moderna announces additional investments to increase the global production capacity of the vaccine for COVID-19
Expected production capacity increase to 1.4 billion doses of 100 μg vaccine.
The new investments will enable additional production capacity of Moderna's current vaccine for COVID-19 and will allow flexibility in production should higher immunity against the variants be needed.
The original plan for 2021 has increased to produce 700 million vaccine doses and the company is working to deliver up to 1 billion vaccine doses in 2021.
Up to 15 doses in each vial
Moderna received positive feedback from the FDA for its proposal to add additional vaccine doses to each vaccine vial, and the company is working on a program that will allow the use of up to 15 vaccine doses in each vial. Moderna will work with additional regulatory agencies if required.
"We are investing in increasing production capacity in order to help us increase production and allow us the flexibility to produce potential booster vaccines, in order to respond to the new variants of the virus," said Stefan Bansel, CEO of Moderna. "We expect that the additional investments will increase our output to 1.4 billion vaccine doses in 2022 at a discount and each dose will contain 100 μg. If the booster vaccines for the variants require a smaller dose, for example 50 μg, we can produce more than 2 billion vaccine doses in 2022.”
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