Britain gives conditional approval to Moderna’s Omicron vaccination

The bivalent vaccine made by U.S. Drug Company Moderna was conditional approval as a booster

Britain became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine in late 2020. The British Government has now approved a variant-adapted shot that targets both the original and Omicron version of the virus. The U.K. medicines regulator (MHRA) gave the so-called bivalent vaccine made by U.S. Drug Company Moderna conditional approval as a booster for adults on Monday. Later on Monday, the U.K.'s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunization (JCVI) supported using the variant-adapted shot in the country's booster campaign starting in September. It said that the MHRA's Moderna decision was taken based on the clinical trial data, which showed the booster triggered "a strong immune response" against both the original virus and Omicron (BA.1).

Trial data showed that when it was given as a fourth dose, the variant-adapted shot raised virus-neutralizing antibodies eight-fold against Omicron. The MHRA cited an exploratory analysis in which the shot was found to generate a "good immune response" against the dominant Omicron offshoots BA.4 and BA.5. Moderna's trial data showed its variant-adapted booster caused virus-neutralizing antibody levels against the sub-variants that were 1.69 times higher than those given in the original booster.