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Moderna, Inc., a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines announced that the European Medicines Agency (EMA) has authorized a third dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine (Spikevax) given at least 28 days after the second dose to severely immunocompromised individuals 12 years of age or older.
“We recognize the need to protect immunocompromised individuals who are at the highest risk of severe COVID-19 disease. It is promising to see recent trials demonstrating that a third dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine may enhance immune response in this important population,” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna. “We remain committed to helping to end the COVID-19 pandemic with our mRNA vaccine.”
A growing number of studies have shown the benefit of a third dose of COVID-19 vaccine in immunocompromised subjects. In particular, a recent double-blind, randomized controlled trial of 120 individuals who had undergone solid organ transplant procedures (heart, kidney, kidney-pancreas, liver, lung, pancreas) demonstrated that a third dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine improved immune response compared to placebo1. In the study, the third dose was generally well tolerated.
About Spikevax (COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna)
Spikevax (formerly known as COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna) is an mRNA vaccine against COVID-19 encoding for a prefusion stabilized form of the Spike (S) protein. On December 18, 2020, the U.S. FDA authorized the emergency use of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine in individuals 18 years of age or older. Moderna has received emergency (or other conditional, interim or provisional) authorization for use of its COVID-19 vaccine in adults from health agencies in more than 50 countries and an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) from the World Health Organization (WHO).
About Moderna
In 10 years since its inception, Moderna has transformed from a science research-stage company advancing programs in the field of messenger RNA (mRNA), to an enterprise with a diverse clinical portfolio of vaccines and therapeutics across six modalities, a broad intellectual property portfolio in areas including mRNA and lipid nanoparticle formulation, and an integrated manufacturing plant that allows for both clinical and commercial production at scale and at unprecedented speed. Moderna maintains alliances with a broad range of domestic and overseas government and commercial collaborators, which has allowed for the pursuit of both groundbreaking science and rapid scaling of manufacturing. Most recently, Moderna’s capabilities have come together to allow the authorized use of one of the earliest and most-effective vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic.
Moderna’s mRNA platform builds on continuous advances in basic and applied mRNA science, delivery technology and manufacturing, and has allowed the development of therapeutics and vaccines for infectious diseases, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, cardiovascular diseases and autoimmune diseases. Moderna has been named a top biopharmaceutical employer by Science for the past six years.
