Omicron vaccine ‘ready by August’
AUSTRALIANS could have access to a new Covid jab to protect against Omicron by August, according to Moderna’s general manager for Australia, Michael Arzak.
The company said its MRNA vaccine production model was so fast it would soon be able to produce within weeks vaccines specific to the viruses circulating in Australia at any point in time.
The company is working on a single vaccine that would protect against three killer respiratory viruses – Covid, the flu and RSV (a common cold-like virus that afflicts the elderly and young babies) – and could be produced in its Australian plant.
As soon as the company knew the genetic code of the particular variants of the viruses circulating in the community it could produce a vaccine
against them and manufacture millions of doses within weeks, Moderna’s chief medical officer Paul Burton said.
This compares with the six months it takes to produce the traditional flu vaccine, which often no longer matches the strains in circulation by the time it comes off the production line.
“The amazing thing with this platform is the speed with which you can adapt,” Mr Burton said.
“So once you identify that pathogen, the new strain of the virus and you can make the MRNA, you can put it straight into the lipid nanoparticle and you have a vaccine that’s ready to go.”
Mr Arzak said: “We could potentially make a mid-season flu, Australia-specific vaccine by addressing the antigens that we need to form to a flu that is specific to Australia at the moment.”
A major hurdle to this at the moment is the requirement that each new version of MRNA vaccine must undergo clinical trials.
Traditional flu vaccines have no such requirement.
Global medical regulators are expected to make a ruling soon that would eliminate the need for these clinical trials, given that more than 700 million people have used MRNA vaccines with minimal safety problems.
If the need for clinical trials is eliminated this could dramatically speed up access to newer versions of the vaccine.
Last week Moderna released data from a trial showing its new Omicron-specific vaccine produced a 12-fold increase in antibody levels against Covid.
The bivalent booster vaccine, combining the Wuhan strain and the Omicron variant, will be ready for use in Australia by August 1, Mr Arzak said.
“The product is available and we will be in a position to supply from August 1 but it obviously it’s still under evaluation by the TGA and then you obviously have your ATAGI recommendations as soon as it comes up,” he said.
It will be will be up to federal Health Minister Mark Butler to order supplies of the vaccine, he said.
“This really is now a population health decision discussion here in Australia. But we’re ready to support as needed,” Mr Burton said.
The booster had the potential to be a “transformational turning point in our fight against this virus globally”, Mr Burton said.
“The virus now mutates frequently, far faster than it ever used to, and for us to really win this battle we have to be able to quickly adapt and come out with very adaptive bivalent boosters (to) give us an opportunity to leapfrog the evolution that this virus keeps doing,” Mr Burton said.
Moderna is powering ahead with its plans to set up an MRNA vaccine manufacturing plant in Melbourne.
“We hope to start building by the end of this year, and have the facility operational by the end of 2024, subject to TGA regulatory approvals,” Mr Arzak said.