New mRNA Flu Vaccine Initiated with Two Human Trials

Jul, 2021 - By SMI

A new vaccine is designed by Biotech firm Moderna to shield against four separate strains of the virus and is ready to undergo human trials.

Researchers from Biotech firm Moderna started trials on humans for testing the efficacy of an mRNA influenza vaccine to protect from four different strains of COVID-19. In the past year, mRNA COVID-19 vaccine found to be incredibly successful in beating SARS-CoV-2, however the novel virus developed their new strains in themselves, which are more dangerous as compared to the previous ones. To overcome the effects of new strains, researchers planned to develop the single vaccine to prevent multiple respiratory viruses.

Morderna developed this new influenza vaccine and termed it as mRNA-1010. It’s the first flu vaccine of the company, which targets four independent strains of the virus that are influenza A H1N1, H3N2, influenza B Yamagata and Victoria. The Phase 1 and 2 of trials is designed to evaluate safety and ability of vaccine to generate the required immune responses or immunogenicity, which is conducted in the United States. The trials are planned to conduct on 180 subjects over the coming month.

The current vaccines are observed to be 50% effective when it comes to restrain three or four kinds of influenza strains. It needs to be reformulated every year to target these strains. The formulation of these vaccines requires more time however, mRNA vaccines are formed easily and require less time for formation. Hence, when the viral strain is detected, it’s easy for researchers to develop the vaccine for problematic viral strains. Mr. Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, revealed that their vision is to generate a combination vaccine that could be used to restrain number of problematic respiratory viruses instead of just keeping it limited to multi-strain influenza coronavirus. The mRNA combination vaccine would be effective in beating any kind of respiratory viruses.