Moderna hopes to offer an updated COVID-19 booster vaccine in the fall that will combine its original vaccine with protection against the Omicron variant. The company reported a preliminary hint on Tuesday suggesting that such an approach could work.
Posted at 10:15 a.m.
Currently available COVID-19 vaccines are all based on the original version of the virus. But the virus continues to mutate, with the super-contagious Omicron variant – and its subvariants – posing the latest threat.
Prior to Omicron’s arrival, Moderna was studying a combination vaccine that added protection against an earlier variant called Beta. On Tuesday, the company said people who received the beta-original combination vaccine produced more antibodies capable of fighting multiple variants – including Omicron – than the booster doses currently given.
Although the antibody boost was modest, Moderna’s goal is to produce a combination injection that specifically targets Omicron. “These results really give us hope” that the next step will work even better, said Dr.D Jacqueline Miller, Vice President of Moderna.
Tuesday’s data was reported online and has not been verified by independent experts.
COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness, hospitalization and death, even against Omicron. This variant is so different from the original coronavirus that it more easily bypasses immune system defenses, although studies in the US and elsewhere indicate that a booster dose boosts protection. Some countries offer particularly vulnerable people a second booster.
Health officials have made it clear that giving boosters every few months is not the answer to the virus. They began to deliberate on how to decide if and when to change the vaccine recipe.
Simply switching to a vaccine that targets the newest variant is risky because the virus could mutate again. So Moderna and rival Pfizer are both testing what scientists call “bivalent” vaccines — a mix of each company’s original vaccine and a version targeting Omicron.
Why would the earlier combination dose of Moderna, targeting the Beta variant, have an effect on Omicron? That’s because it includes four mutations that the Beta and Omicron variants have in common, Ms.me Miller.
Moderna is now testing a bivalent vaccine that better targets Omicron — it includes 32 of that variant’s mutations. Studies of two booster doses are underway in the United States and Great Britain; the results are expected at the end of June.