(Boursier.com) — Moderna stumbles 6% before trading on Wall Street on Friday, as the laboratory, maker of COVID vaccines, indicated that a trial of a candidate flu vaccine had not achieved one of its objectives. “Although we have not achieved non-inferiority for influenza B strains that are more common in younger populations, we have already updated the vaccine which we believe may improve immune responses against the influenza B and we will seek to quickly confirm these improvements in a future clinical study thanks to the agility of our mRNA platform,” says Moderna.
Moderna clarified that its experimental messenger RNA flu vaccine generated a strong immune response against influenza A strains, but failed to show that it was at least as effective as an approved vaccine against to the less common influenza B. The American group, whose only marketed product is its vaccine against Covid-19, is now betting on an influenza vaccine and intends to recover market share in vaccines against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and seasonal influenza with its mRNA platform.
Moderna explained that its mRNA-1010 vaccine generated a stronger immune response for A/H3N2 and A/H1N1 strains than the marketed vaccine against which it was tested in a trial of 6,102 adults aged 18 and over in Argentina, in Australia, Colombia, Panama and the Philippines during local flu season. However, it did not achieve its objective of non-inferiority to the conventional vaccine for the B/Victoria and B/Yamagata strains.
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