((Automated translation by Reuters, please see disclaimer https://bit.ly/rtrsauto))
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A panel of experts outside the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously to recommend the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines, as authorized by the FDA, in people aged six months and older for the 2024-25 vaccination campaign.
The agency’s recommendation comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked vaccine makers earlier this month to update new vaccines to target the KP.2 variant, if possible, instead of the lineage JN.1 which she had sought to target earlier.
Independent advisers to the FDA, the European health regulator and the World Health Organization had sought to target the JN.1 strain with the updated vaccines.
Moderna MRNA.O and Novavax NVAX.O – makers of two of the three COVID vaccines – had submitted their applications to the FDA for the updated vaccines for the fall 2024 season targeting the JN.1 strain.
Novavax said that manufacturing of a vaccine suitable for the JN.1 strain was underway and that it was not possible to prepare a vaccine for another strain this fall.
Pfizer PFE.N and Moderna produce mRNA vaccines, which can be developed more quickly than Novavax’s protein-based vaccine.
Novavax filed for approval of its JN.1-targeted vaccine earlier this month and said it could be available by mid-July. The company said the vaccine showed broad cross-neutralizing antibodies against multiple variants, including KP.2 and KP.3.
