Extra 150 million doses of Moderna COVID jab bought by EC
pharmafile | June 23, 2021 | News story | Research and Development |
Moderna have announced that the European Commission (EC) has purchased an additional 150 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, bringing the total number of vaccines purchased by the EC up to 460 million.
Under the terms of the agreement, delivery of Moderna’s updated variant booster vaccine candidate will begin in 2022, and also included the ability to purchase other COVID-19 vaccine candidates from Moderna’s pipeline.
Stephane Bancel, Moderna’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “We appreciate the collaboration with the European Commission for these additional doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, which could be used for primary vaccination, including of children, or possibly as a booster if that becomes necessary to continue to defeat the pandemic.
“We are encouraged by the initial booster data, which reinforce our confidence that our booster strategy should be protective against current variants. We will remain proactive as the virus evolves by leveraging the flexibility of our mRNA platform to stay ahead of emerging variants.”
Initial data from Moderna’s Phase II study in the US showed that a single 50μg dose of mRNA-1273 or mRNA-1273.351 given as a booster to previously vaccinated individuals increased neutralising antibody titre responses against SARS-CoV-2 and two variants of concern. A booster dose of mRNA-1273.351, the company’s strain-matched booster, achieved higher neutralising antibody titres against the B.1.351 variant of concern than a booster dose of mRNA-1273.
The EC has granted a conditional marketing authorisation for Moderna’s vaccine, which is an mRNA vaccine encoding for a prefusion stabilised form of the Spike (S) protein.
In December 2020, the FDA authorised the emergency use of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine in individuals 18 years of age or older. Moderna has also received emergency (or other conditional, interim or provisional) authorisation for use of its COVID-19 vaccine from health agencies in Canada, Israel, the EU, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Singapore, Qatar, Taiwan, the World Health Organization and several other countries.
Kat Jenkins
