Covid-19 vaccines targeting several variants are in Moderna, Novavax

The work belongs to a variety of efforts to undertake vaccine makers and medical researchers to identify variants such as those in the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

Research suggests that some vaccines currently in use produce weaker immune responses against the strain found especially in South Africa, although there is no evidence that current vaccines do not protect against variants.

To be safe, companies are exploring the enhancement of the protection that existing shots offer by adding doses, updating the shots, or creating an amplifier. A multivalent survey is another approach in the work.

The testing of multivalent vaccine candidates in humans has not yet begun. Some businesses hope to start in the spring so shots can already be available in the summer.

Health experts say the broad-spectrum shots could make a difference in the pandemic battle by thwarting mutations in the coronavirus that could help evade existing vaccines before widespread herd immunity is achieved.

“If there are two or three predominant global strains, and the infection or immunity to one does not protect against the other, we may need multivalent vaccines,” said Buddy Creech, director of Vanderbilt University’s vaccination research program.

Multivalent vaccines are a widely used weapon against other viruses, such as measles, mumps and rubella. Some pneumonia vaccines target 23 strains, while most flu shots target four different flu strains.

To defeat a variety of variants, the vaccines essentially mix a number of different shots. As long as researchers choose the right combinations, the vaccines should work, but not if the mixture spreads too thin, the vaccine experts say.

Multivalent vaccines will be especially useful against Covid-19, say virologists and vaccine experts as scientists can predict which mutations could spread, as is done with flu each year.

“The real question is what the virus is going to develop, and if we know the answer to it, we can stop it,” he said. Sean Whelan, a virologist at Washington University in St. Louis. Louis, whose laboratory is trying to predict. important mutations.

Businesses have begun pursuing multivalent Covid-19 vaccines over the past few months, as research has suggested that emerging variants may escape protection against current vaccines.

The companies prefer to make multivalent Covid-19 vaccines, rather than customizing shots in different areas of the world with different variants.

However, multivalent vaccines are more complicated to research and manufacture, which can increase the cost of the business and the time it takes to make them, vaccine experts say.

The global market for Covid-19 vaccines will be worth more than $ 15 billion if annual shots are needed to address declining protection over time and multivalent vaccines are needed to ward off variants, Bernstein Research estimates.

Moderna, which is developing a vaccine specifically targeted to the strain identified in South Africa, is also aiming for a candidate who will combine the variant-focused combination with the vaccine currently in use.

The combination ‘could ultimately be the best approach’, Moderna president Stephen Hoge said during a merit call last month. Moderna did not specify when a study for the multivalent candidate would begin.

Novavax, which has a Covid-19 vaccine that targeted the original version of the virus in the late stages of US testing, plans to begin testing a dual-valued vaccine that targets the original version of the virus by mid-year. , as well as the variant first identified in South Africa. Dr. Gregory Glenn, the company’s R&D chief, said at a conference this month.

According to the Novavax spokesperson, he decided on this approach after analyzing the data from his clinical trials in the UK. This indicates that the South African variant will be protected against other tribes.

According to AstraZeneca AZN, researchers at the University of Oxford follow a multivalent approach that focuses on strains first identified in Brazil and South Africa. 1.40%

PLC, which licensed the shot to distribute.

Trials could begin this spring with the shot available in the summer, Dr. Mene Pangalos, CEO of AstraZeneca, said at a conference with analysts last month.

Drew Weissman, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania whose research has contributed to the mRNA technology used by BioNTech’s BNTX 2.82%

and Moderna, said his team is working on a multivalent vaccine to cover all current and future variants.

‘Nobody wants to be in a position for a variant to infect everyone all over again, which is why people want their vaccines ready. We have not yet reached that point. So we have time to do it right, ”he said in an interview.

Johnson & Johnson JNJ 1.03%

said he was preparing an antigen – the substance on which a vaccine relies to generate an immune response – that would target the variant that is spreading in South Africa.

The company, which has a newly authorized Covid-19 vaccine, did not commit a multivalent survey, but would develop one if a variant would escape protection against the vaccine.

Pfizer Inc.,

PFE 0.90%

which, together with partner BioNTech, developed the first Covid-19 vaccine authorized in the US, is only working on a vaccine aimed at the South African variant. Pfizer believes it is sufficient to target just one strain because it displaces other variants, so a multivalent vaccine that attacks multiple strains is not necessary, said Phil Dormitzer, the scientific head of viral vaccines.

Yet dr. Ofer Levy, director of the vaccination program at Boston Children’s Hospital, said several variants can circulate simultaneously until one becomes the dominant strain.

Write to Jared S. Hopkins by [email protected]