The third dose of Moderna multiplies by up to 37 the antibodies against omicron

Moderna has announced that a booster dose of its COVID-19 vaccine increases the levels of neutralizing antibodies against omicron approximately 37 times compared to the levels prior to this third dose.

Furthermore, in the study carried out by the company, a modified dose of your current vaccine (100 ug vs 50 ug), increased antibody levels neutralizers approximately 83 times compared to pre-boost levels.

“The dramatic increase in COVID-19 cases of the omicron variant is worrying for all. However, these data that show that Moderna booster vaccine can increase neutralizing antibody levels 37 times above previous levels the reinforcement is reassuring “, commented the CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel. In this sense, the company’s top leader added that, despite these data, Modrena” will continue to advance rapidly in the clinical trial of a candidate for reinforcement specific for omicron, in case it were necessary in the future “.

Moderna’s strategy against omicron includes evaluation of a booster dose of the already licensed vaccine (50 ug) and a higher dose (100 ug), multivalent vaccines incorporating previous omicrons also at 50 ug and 100 ug and specific booster candidates for Delta and omicron. These booster vaccine candidates are being evaluated in ongoing phase 2/3 studies with approximately 300-600 participants per arm.

The data presented Monday includes sera from 20 booster recipients from each of these three groups. Neutralizing antibodies to omicron were evaluated in an assay conducted in laboratories established by the Vaccine Research Center of the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the University of California Medical Center. Duke. All groups had low levels of neutralizing antibodies in the pre-boost assay.

On day 29 after the booster dose, the already approved 50 ug vaccine increased the geometric mean neutralizing titers (GMT) against omicron to 850, which is approximately 37 times higher than pre-booster levels. Similarly, the 100 ug boost dose increased neutralizing GMTs to 2,228, which is approximately 83 times higher than pre-boost levels. The multivalent candidates increased the levels of omicron-specific neutralizing antibodies to equally high levels at both the 50 ug and 100 ug levels.

Based on the strength of the neutralizing titers generated by the already approved vaccine, the rapid rate of expansion of omicron, and the increased complexity of deploying a new vaccine, the company has advanced that it will “focus its short-term efforts to address omicron on the booster dose” with the current vaccine.

Meanwhile, and “given the long-term threat demonstrated by the immune escape of omicron,” Moderna will also continue to develop a vaccine of the specific variant of omicron that it hopes to advance in clinical trials in early 2022 and will evaluate the inclusion of omicron in your multivalent reinforcement program.