The French CEO of Moderna, Stéphane Bancel, wants vulnerable people to receive a third dose of the vaccine by the end of the summer and announced that the American company will file an application for authorization in Europe of its vaccine for teenagers.
- The Moderna vaccine confers immunity for one to three years depending on the patient.
- Stéphane Bancel wants to vaccinate 12-17 year olds before the end of August.
- Trials are underway to test different boosters of the vaccine.
As of May 28, the Moderna vaccine should be available in pharmacies. Reserved so far for vaccination centers, it will be the first messenger RNA vaccine to arrive in town. This Sunday, the French CEO Stéphane Bancel gave an interview to the Sunday newspaper and gave several indications as to the future of vaccination.
Vaccination of adolescents under study
In order to anticipate the threat posed by variants, Stéphane Bancel prefers to play the security card. He encourages “vaccinate with a third dose all people at risk from the end of the summer, in particular residents of nursing homes who received their first dose at the beginning of the year.” He indicated that the Moderna vaccine confers immunity “from one to three years depending on the patient”. This extra dose would be used to counter the arrival of variants that “raises threat level”.
The other hobbyhorse for the France CEO of Moderna are teenagers. For him, this is the next public to be vaccinated. Considering that “by the summer, all adults wishing to be vaccinated will have received a first dose”, he feels that he “will then very quickly have to target adolescents aged 12 to 17”. Remarks which follow those of Alain Fischer, the president of the orientation council on the vaccine strategy, who indicated on Friday that 16-18 year olds will be able to be vaccinated in June and that 12-15 year olds could follow at the start of the school year. Stéphane Bancel hopes for a slightly more accelerated schedule and has announced that Moderna will file an application for authorization in Europe of its vaccine for adolescents in early June. “The ideal would be to protect them before the end of August. If we do not vaccinate massively, the risk of a fourth wave cannot be ruled out”, he underlined.
Clinical trials for boosters against variants
Separately, Stéphane Bancel revealed that Moderna is currently testing the effectiveness of three different boosters – Wuhan strain, South African strain and a mixture of the two – against four variants of the coronavirus. The results of these trials are expected in early June before human clinical trials are conducted. The objective is to “provide data to regulatory agencies in August, for registration in September”.
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