Moderna announced Thursday the development of a booster vaccine that would provide additional protection against COVID-19 and influenza using a single dose.
The CEO of Moderna, Stephane Bancel, first announced plans to create a dual booster shot in April but did not provide additional details about the development process. The pharmaceutical company is calling the booster mRNA-1073 and has said that it aims to combine half the dosage of its typical COVID-19 vaccinations with a flu shot that is also under development.
“Today, we are announcing the first step in our novel respiratory vaccine program with the development of a single-dose vaccine that combines a booster against COVID-19 and a booster against flu,” Bancel said in a statement Thursday. “We are making progress on enrolling patients in our rare disease programs, and we are fully enrolled in our personalized cancer vaccine trial. We believe this is just the beginning of a new age of information-based medicines.”
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Shares of Moderna jumped by more than 5% after the announcement of the booster development on Thursday.
At this time, booster shots are only recommended for people with autoimmune disorders or those at greater risk for becoming severely ill from a COVID-19 infection. If boosters become recommended by the Food and Drug Administration, people are recommended to take the third dose eight months after receiving their second dose.
Moderna recently conducted studies to determine the benefits of administering a third shot of its two-dose vaccine to protect against the more transmissible delta variant. Bancel said in August that vaccine developers at the company “are looking forward towards our vision of a single dose annual booster that provides protection against COVID-19, flu and [respiratory syncytial virus] for adults.”
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The FDA is scheduled to hold an advisory committee meeting to discuss Pfizer-BioNTech‘s application for a COVID-19 booster dosage on Sept. 17.
