Booster shots under development by Moderna Inc. helped improve immune responses against some variants among people given the company’s Covid-19 vaccine in an early study, the biotech company said Wednesday.
The results, though preliminary, are a sign that adding booster shots several months after original vaccinations could bolster people’s immunity against more contagious strains of the virus.
The company tested giving people boosts with either a single dose of its original vaccine, mRNA-1273, or a new vaccine, mRNA-1273.351, which was modified to better match a virus variant first identified in South Africa and known as B.1.351.
The subjects received the booster shots about six to eight months after they had received the second dose of the original vaccine as part of a midstage, Phase 2 study that started last year.
Both booster shots increased immune-system agents known as neutralizing antibodies against two variants of concern: B.1.351 and P.1, which was first identified in Brazil, according to Moderna.
The immune responses were measured 15 days following the booster doses, the company said.
A booster dose of the variant-targeted vaccine induced higher neutralizing antibody concentrations against the B.1.351 variant than a booster dose of Moderna’s original vaccine, Moderna said.
“We are encouraged by these new data, which reinforce our confidence that our booster strategy should be protective against these newly detected variants,” Moderna Chief Executive Stephane Bancel said.
Variants of the virus emerged as a threat to efforts overcoming the pandemic, as vaccines rolled out.
Some studies have indicated that currently authorized shots protect against the variants, though the vaccines didn’t appear to work as well against B.1.351 and P.1 as against the original strain.
Drugmakers including Pfizer Inc. and Johnson & Johnson launched programs exploring new vaccines and booster shots.
Moderna’s experimental booster shots were generally well tolerated, the company said. A majority of side effects like fatigue and headache were mild or moderate, the company said.
The study didn’t test whether the booster shots protected people from disease caused by the variants.
Moderna announced the preliminary study results in a press release and said it has submitted them to a preprint server. The data haven’t yet gone through a third-party expert vetting process known as peer review.
The Cambridge, Mass., biotech said it would also submit study data to a peer-reviewed publication at a later date.
Moderna also is testing a combination vaccine, one targeting the original viral strain as well as the B.1.351 variant, in the same study and plans to report results of that booster approach shortly.
The booster shots present a significant commercial opportunity for Moderna and other drugmakers.
Covid-19 vaccines are expected to ring up tens of billions of dollars in sales this year. They could provide a durable source of revenue, if people need to regularly get boosters.
A booster shot would be especially lucrative if proven effective even in people who received a different vaccine originally, such as a person fully vaccinated with Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine later receiving a booster from Moderna.
Researchers plan to study whether a fully vaccinated person would be protected by a booster from a different company.
Write to Peter Loftus at peter.loftus@wsj.com
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