Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel on Monday unveiled new data showing that his company’s vaccine is still effective in fighting new coronavirus variants, even though he has come a long way in the war against the pandemic.
The study by the biotechnology firm showed what he calls ‘protective’ immune responses to the variant first documented in the UK (B.1.1.7) and the variant seen in South Africa (B.1.351).
Nevertheless, Bancel has thoroughly assessed the pandemic and said that there is good reason to expect that continuous stimulus shots are needed to protect against mutations that may be other variants of SARS-Cov-2, the virus behind the global COVID-19 outbreak. spread.
“I believe that SARS-Cov-2 will stay with people forever,” Bancel said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. ‘We’ll have to get boosts adjusted for a virus, just like for the flu. It’s the same, both are mRNA viruses, and we’ll have to live with them forever. ”
The company announced on Monday that it is also starting testing an additional booster dose of its vaccine, out of plenty of caution to potentially boost the immune response against emerging strains.
Bancel noted that although the original two-dose vaccine did retain a protective response against the South African strain, neutralizing antibodies decreased sixfold compared to previous variants.
Nevertheless, Bancel said the vaccine continues to deliver a stronger immune response than expected in patients contracting COVID-19, and the company fears the vaccine would not be effective against the newer strains.
Looking ahead, Bancel stressed the importance of the booster-shot dose, given the production capacity limitations that are already thin amid the delivery of its two-dose vaccine.
“The big question with the boost is going to be the dose,” he said. Do you need 25 or 50 or 100 micrograms? The current FDA-approved product is 100 micrograms, twice: a prime and a boost. ‘
He reaffirmed Moderna’s original goal of delivering 100 million vaccine doses by March. However, what studies show the dosage of fragrances can be large when it comes to keeping future variants.
“If a dose was 50 or 25 micrograms, which is possible because your immune system is already prepared, you may not need to have a large capacity increase,” he said.
Set the ‘benchmark for success’
The future of pandemics, of course, depends on a number of factors. Among the most pressing questions are the slow introduction of vaccines to the public and the timing of other vaccine approvals – including Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) candidate for vaccine, which could come within the next two weeks.
Bancel said another candidate for the vaccine led in the effort by Moderna and Pfizer (PFE) could help increase his company’s capacity focus in the fall to boosters for problematic variants.
‘I hope the vaccine Johnson & Johnson [comes] soon, ”he said, noting that Moderna’s mRNA vaccine technology has led to a faster approval process than some others.
‘Some technologies will not be able to go fast enough. Think about it, from the older technology they quote, they said that they will only have a vaccine until the end of the year, ”he speculates.
As Michael Ryan, Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, recently noted, the virus is expected to spread and mutate for a long time to come as vaccines are administered. This makes fighting the virus a first step, but a long way from eradicating it completely.
“I do not believe we should start eliminating or eradicating this virus as the measure of success,” Bancel told Yahoo Finance. “The measure of success is to reduce the ability of this virus to kill, to put people in the hospital, to destroy our economic (and) social lives.”
Zack Guzman is an anchor for Yahoo Finance Live, as well as a senior writer dealing with entrepreneurship, cannabis, startups and news on Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @zGuz.
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