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Moderna Released Preliminary Results on Omicron-containing Booster
Disclaimer: Not medical or professional advice. Always seek the advice of your physician.
Moderna has developed a double-acting vaccine, which includes mRNA components of the original strain of COVID-19 and Omicron. The company announced the trial results in a recent press release. The bivalent vaccine demonstrated a similar safety profile to the original vaccine and a sharp increase in the titer of antibodies to omicron. Moderna expects the updated vaccine to be available at mass vaccination sites as a booster jab ahead of fall flu season.
For the most part, the development of the vaccines against COVID-19 started in the spring of 2020, when the first strain of SARS-CoV-2 was circulating around the globe. However, it is now almost impossible to detect the original version of the virus since it was quickly replaced by new variants, such as alpha, delta, and omicron.
Vaccine manufacturers have promised to update their vaccines so that they provide an immune response to currently circulating variants. A systematic review showed that the old vaccines were effective against the new variants, and they can still offer protection against severe illness. Given the situation, the production of updated vaccines was not launched.
Later, it turned out that Omicron has a greater ability to evade the immune responses, and vaccines are far less effective in preventing infection. Therefore, in the winter of 2022, Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna announced that they started to test omicron-specific vaccines. Moderna released trial data in April.
New Vaccine Option
Vaccine developers decided to use a combination of mRNA components to increase and extend protection to new variants. For example, the mRNA-1273.211 trial vaccine contained a mix of standard mRNA (as in the Spikevax vaccine) and beta variant messenger RNAs (that share several common mutations in the spike protein with the Omicron variant). Unfortunately, the first trials showed that the updated version worked almost the same way as the original vaccine. Neutralizing antibodies titers against Omicron were similar in people who received an older booster and a new booster dose.
The previous version of the bivalent booster demonstrated a comparable level of immunogenicity as a two-dose regimen of the classic vaccine.
Subsequently, the developers switched to the next investigational booster, mRNA-1273.214, which was based on Omicron and addressed 32 of its spike protein mutations. The findings of the trials have not been published, but company representatives claimed that the results were in line with their expectations, as per the press release. Side effects from a booster dose of 100 μg of the mRNA-1273.214 vaccine (50 µg each mRNA) were not different from those reported after a 50 µg second dose of the original vaccine. The new booster was able to achieve an eight-fold rise in levels of antibodies capable of fighting omicron, nearly 1.5-2 times more efficient than the old version. Furthermore, the levels of antibodies in the blood of participants were significantly higher against other variants (alpha, beta, gamma, and the original strain, respectively) when compared with people who were given the original booster.
However, developers have yet to determine the duration of antibody responses after the booster dose. To find out, the company plans to continue monitoring trial participants and report data from Day 91 after vaccination later in the summer. Moderna also intends to submit clinical trial data to US regulators in order to receive authorization for bivalent boosters for the fall 2022 vaccination campaign ahead of the winter infectious season.