Sunday, November 28th, 2021
Development has already started
Moderna: Omicron vaccine possible in early 2022
Shortly after the news about the new coronavirus mutant, the US company Moderna starts developing a vaccine. However, it remains to be seen whether a new vaccine will even be necessary, says CEO Burton. If so, production could start as early as the beginning of 2022.
The vaccine manufacturer Moderna started work on a vaccine against the Omicron variant on the last Thanksgiving holiday. Hundreds of his employees started working on a corresponding adaptation of the corona vaccine after the first publications about the mutant, the medical head of the pharmaceutical company, Paul Burton, said in a BBC interview. Thanksgiving fell on November 25th this year – last Thursday.
It will take a few more weeks to have reliable knowledge about how much the new Corona variant eludes the effect of the current vaccines and whether a new vaccine has to be produced. If so, he reckons that this could be manufactured on a large scale in early 2022. Like the Biontech product, the Moderna vaccine is one of the mRNA vaccines whose adaptation to new variants is considered to be relatively feasible.
“It’s a seemingly dangerous virus,” said Burton. “But I think we now have a lot of tools in our arsenal to fight it, so I’m optimistic.” The omicron variant (B.1.1.529), which was first detected in southern Africa, was classified as “worrying” by the World Health Organization (WHO).