Moderna CEO says it will take months to clear a new Covid vaccine targeting omicron

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel

© APA | Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel

# 30 November 2021 12:17 (UTC +04:00)

Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel on Monday said it will take months to develop and ship a vaccine that specifically targets the omicron variant of the virus that causes Covid-19, APA reports citing CNBC.

However, a higher 100-microgram dose of the company’s booster shot could be ready much sooner.

“The higher dose could be done right away but it will be months before the omicron specific variant is ready to ship in massive quantities,” Bancel told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

Bancel said Moderna believes the omicron variant is highly infectious, but it will take at least two weeks to determine how much the mutations have impacted the efficacy of the vaccines currently on the market.

“Depending on how much it dropped, we might decide on the one hand to give a higher dose of the current vaccine around the world to protect people, maybe people at very high risk, the immunocompromised, and the elderly should need a fourth dose” he said.

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC that the FDA can move fast to approve a new vaccine to target omicron.

“I think the FDA is in a position to move very quickly at this point because they understand the basic platform, the manufacturing has been inspected, they understand the risk-benefit of the mRNA platforms generally,” said Gottlieb, who is a Pfizer board member.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said the impact of omicron on the company’s two-dose vaccine remains to be seen.

“I don’t think that the result will be the vaccines don’t protect,” Bourla told CNBC. “I think the result could be, which we don’t know yet, the vaccines protect less.”

Bourla said Pfizer has already begun work on manufacturing a new vaccine if necessary. The company made its first DNA template Friday, he said, the initial step in the development process.

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