'We need vaccines with longer duration and greater breadth of protection,' said Dr. David Kessler, chief science officer for the White House’s COVID-19 response team.
Moderna MRNA, +3.81% and Pfizer PFE, -0.41% have not yet started clinical trials for the new COVID-19 shots that are expected to better target the BA.4 and BA.5 strains of the virus.
The submission to the FDA for these shots will be slightly different in order to speed up their availability, according to Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer, based on a FactSet transcript of Thursday’s earnings call. He told investors that Pfizer and the FDA have agreed that the application for the updated booster will include “safety and immunogenicity data generated in adults with an omicron-modified BA.1 vaccine and supported by BA.
“We are discussing the trial details with the FDA,” the Moderna spokesperson said in an email. “The trial will be structured similarly to other variant-of-concern studies.” The U.S. is at a critical point in the pandemic. The public has largely ignored the official messaging around boosters, and only about one-third of people who qualify for a third dose of the vaccine have gotten one. Americans have largely moved on from caring about the virus, and that’s creating a problem as immunity wanes and BA.5 circulates.
The U.S. has contracted with both companies to supply the new vaccines, most recently with Friday’s announcement that Moderna signed a $1.7 billion contract with the government to provide 66 million doses of a new COVID-19 vaccine booster.