Moderna's New COVID-19 Vaccine Readies for the CDC

A Moderna Inc. funded study published on September 7, 2023, offered positive news ahead of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention meeting of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices on September 12, 2023, at 10 a.m. ET.

This non-peer-reviewed preprint study of the ongoing phase 2/3 study of Moderna's mRNA-1273.815 monovalent (50-µg omicron XBB.1.5 spike mRNA) or mRNA-1273.231 bivalent (25-µg omicron XBB.1.5 and 25-µg omicron BA.4/BA.5 spike mRNAs) vaccines, administered as 5th doses to adults.

In this interim analysis, XBB.1.5-containing monovalent and bivalent vaccines elicited potent neutralizing responses against variants of the omicron XBB-lineage (XBB.1.5, XBB.1.6, XBB.2.3.2, EG.5.1, and FL.1.5.1) as well as the recently emerged BA.2.86 variant, in about 50 study participants.

And the safety profile of the XBB.1.5-containing vaccine was consistent with those of prior vaccines.

According to these researchers, these results overall indicate that the XBB.1.5-containing mRNA-1273.815 vaccine has the potential to provide protection against these emerging variants and support the Covid-19 vaccine update in 2023-2024 to a monovalent XBB.1.5-containing vaccine.

This study was not powered for a statistical comparison of the immune responses between the vaccine groups or vaccine efficacy. The corresponding author is Spyros Chalkias, MD Moderna, [email protected].

Previously, Moderna announced that clinical trial data from a research assay confirmed its updated COVID-19 vaccine generated an 8.7-fold increase in neutralizing antibodies in humans against BA.2.86 (Pirola).

Previously known as SpikeVax, this COVID-19 Vaccine is a Messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine targeted against the SARS-CoV-2 betacoronavirus to prevent severe COVID-19. On December 18, 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization.