Modern Inc.
MRNA -0.86%
said Wednesday that the first volunteers in the study received modified Covid-19 vaccines designed to better target a more contagious variant of the coronavirus, marking an important step in the race to stay ahead of the changing pathogen.
The Cambridge, Massachusetts company, which has one of the most widely used Covid-19 vaccines, plans to enroll 60 people to test the new shot.
The subjects had previously received the two standard doses of Moderna’s initial photograph as part of a middle school study that began last year. In the new part of the study, these adult volunteers will receive a booster vaccine containing the modified Moderna vaccine, codenamed mRNA-1273.351.
Moderna designed the modified shot to better target a highly transmissible strain of the virus that was first identified in South Africa and spread elsewhere.
Some subjects will receive the vaccine variant alone in the mid-stage, or phase 2, study, while others will receive a single shot, codenamed mRNA-1273.211, containing both the variant and the original vaccines.
Moderna’s original Coverna-19 vaccine, approved for use in the United States in December, was extremely effective in a large clinical trial, but showed signs in laboratory tests of a lower potency than the variant identified in South Africa. .
Moderna said in January that its original vaccine still seems to offer some protection against that strain, but as a precaution, it has embarked on a new vaccine that could be given as a booster or in various combinations with the original vaccine. .
Moderna and other companies are preparing for the need for modified vaccines that can defeat emerging variants of the virus. In addition to the strain identified in South Africa, other strains have been identified in the UK and Brazil that spread more easily than the previous version of the virus.
Companies and researchers are concerned that the virus will continue to move to the point where it will get rid of the immunity conferred by the original vaccines.
If testing for the Moderna vaccine variant is positive, it could seek US regulatory approval in the third quarter, the company said.
Modern also tests whether giving people the third dose of the original vaccine provides protection against the variants.
Several tests of the Modern vaccine variant are on the horizon. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases intends to begin an early stage, or phase 1, study of the modified vaccine, working with researchers in Seattle, Atlanta, Cincinnati and Nashville. The study should begin as early as this week, according to a post last week in a federal study database.
Moderna manufactured and delivered doses of the vaccine variant for use in the NIAID study in February.
Write to Peter Loftus at [email protected]
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