Modern Inc.
MRNA -0.86%
said Wednesday that the first volunteers of the study received customized vaccines from Covid-19 designed to better target a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, which is a milestone in the race to stop the shifting pathogen.
The company in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has one of the most widely used Covid-19 vaccines, plans to enroll 60 people to test the new shot.
The subjects previously received the standard two doses of Moderna’s original recording as part of a midterm study that began last year. In the new part of the study, these adult volunteers will receive a booster shot containing Moderna’s modified vaccine, codenamed mRNA-1273.351.
Moderna designed the modified shot to better target an extremely transmissible strain of the virus that was first identified in South Africa and spread elsewhere.
Some subjects will receive the variant vaccine only in the mid-stage or phase 2 study, while others will receive a single shot, codenamed mRNA-1273.211, which contains both the variant and original vaccines.
Moderna’s original Covid-19 vaccine, introduced in the United States in December, was very effective in a large clinical study, but showed in laboratory tests signs of diminished potency compared to the variant identified in South Africa. .
Moderna said in January that the original vaccine apparently still provides some protection against the strain, but as a precaution he has embarked on a new vaccine that can be given as a lap shot or in various combinations with the original vaccine.
Modern and other companies are preparing for the need for modified vaccines that can ward off the emerging variants of the virus. In addition to the strain identified in South Africa, other strains have been identified in the United Kingdom and Brazil that spread more easily than the previous version of the virus.
Businesses and researchers are concerned that the virus will continue to mutate to the point where it will escape the immunity conferred by the original vaccines.
If testing for the Moderna variant vaccine is positive, it could seek U.S. government authorization in the third quarter, the company said.
Moderna is also testing whether people offer a third dose of the original vaccine against the variants.
More testing of Moderna’s variant vaccine is imminent. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases plans to begin an early stage, or phase 1, of the modified vaccine, and is collaborating with researchers in Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Nashville. The study would begin as early as this week, according to a post on a federal database last week.
In February, Moderna manufactured and delivered doses of the various vaccines for use in the NIAID trial.
Write to Peter Loftus by [email protected]
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