Moderna, the biotech company, has announced its plans to progress its combination vaccine for Covid and influenza to a final stage trial in adults aged 50 and above this year. This decision was made following encouraging results from an early to mid-stage study. Moderna’s shot, named mRNA-1083, is anticipated to receive regulatory approval by 2025.
The creation of combination vaccines such as this one are viewed as critical steps towards streamlining protection against respiratory viruses that commonly peak in the same season. Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s CEO, expressed optimism about the prospect of combination respiratory vaccines moving into Phase 3 development, highlighting their potential to enhance patient and provider experience, reinforce compliance with public health guidelines, and provide value for healthcare systems.
Early to mid-stage clinical trials revealed that the immune response elicited by mRNA-1083 was similar or superior to that triggered by two currently accessible flu vaccines from GlaxoSmithKline. Moderna’s combination shot also generated an immune response analogous to its bivalent Covid vaccine which targets omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5 along with the original virus strain.
The trial examined the efficacy of the combination shot in two distinct age groups: individuals aged 50-64 and participants aged 65-79. The safety data for mRNA-1083 mirrored that of the independent Covid vaccine; no new safety issues were associated with the combination vaccine.
In addition to their combo Covid-flu vaccine, Moderna is also working on another combination shot for flu and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), as well as a tri-targeted vaccine against Covid, flu, and RSV. Concurrently, Pfizer and BioNTech are developing a dual-targeted Covid-flu vaccine which entered a phase one trial in November last year; they expect it to be ready for distribution by 2024 or later.