The European Commission has reserved with the American biotech Moderna 15 million additional doses of the new version of its anti-COVID vaccine, modified in particular according to the Omicron variant, it announced on Tuesday.
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The European Medicines Agency (EMA), regulator of the sector, announced in mid-June that it had begun to examine this new version, intended to target both the original strain of SARS CoV-2 and that of the Omicron variant, including sub- variants have recently led to an increase in infections.
However, the agreement reached by the Commission remains subject to the green light from European regulators, “subject to marketing authorization (in the EU) within a timeframe that would allow the use of these doses for vaccination” this fall and winter, according to a press release.
These 15 million are part of the overall order for 460 million doses placed with Moderna, on behalf of the Twenty-Seven, by the Commission since the start of the pandemic. The lab uses messenger RNA technology.
At the beginning of June, the European executive announced that it had reached an agreement with the New York biotech so that “part” of the doses whose delivery was expected in the second quarter could be delivered only from September, in the form of vaccines of booster adapted to SARS CoV-2 variants, including Omicron.
Brussels announced on Tuesday that it had reached an agreement with Moderna to once again adjust the schedule, this time by postponing to September and during the autumn and then the winter the supply of doses whose delivery was initially scheduled for this summer.
This is “to better respond to the needs of Member States” this autumn and winter, “when they will more likely need additional stocks for their national (vaccination) campaigns and the respect of their international solidarity commitments”, explained the Commission.
“The agreement also guarantees that, if one or more adapted vaccines (to the variants) receive a marketing authorization, the Member States can choose to receive these adapted vaccines under the current contract”, specifies the executive. European.