Moderna (Nasdaq:MRNA) announced that its first bivalent booster vaccine candidate, mRNA-1273.211, offered superior protection against SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern compared with its first-gen mRNA-1273 vaccine.
A 50-µg booster of the mRNA-1273.211 vaccine offered protection against the beta, delta and omicron variants for six months and appeared to provide similar tolerability to the FDA-approved mRNA-1273 vaccine.
The company continues to develop a vaccine known as mRNA-1273.214 with more omicron-specific mutations. That vaccine candidate is now in a Phase 2/3 clinical trial. The company expects data from that trial to be available in the second quarter.
Moderna has published data related to the mRNA-1273.211 candidate as a preprint study in Research Square.
The company continues to bet that its bivalent booster candidate, mRNA-1273.214, will find use as a booster in autumn 2022 in the Northern Hemisphere.
In any event, the mRNA-1273.211 booster dose led to a 2.20-fold and 2.15-fold boost in neutralizing antibody titers against omicron compared to the mRNA-1273 booster dose at one month and six months, respectively.
Pfizer and BioNTech are also working on next-gen COVID-19 vaccine candidates. In February, BioNTech CEO Ugur Sahin noted that it had encountered a delay in developing an omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine candidate.