Moderna was developing a booster shot for new COVID-19 variants.
Moderna Inc. on Wednesday said that it was working with US government scientists in order to study an experimental booster shot that targeted a concerning new COVID-19 variant.
Also, Moderna had raised its global COVID-19 vaccine production goal for this year by 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses.
Moderna said that it had produced raw material for a booster shot aimed at addressing the COVID-19 variant first found in South Africa that may be more resistant to existing vaccines, adding that it had shipped the COVID-19 vaccine to the US National Institutes of Health for additional study.
In addition, Moderna was experimenting with some potential ways in order to combat new COVID-19 variants.
Moderna also said that they included an additional booster shot that targeted the COVID-19 variant now prevalent in South Africa and spreading globally, a combined booster shot that mixed its current vaccine with the experimental shot, and an extra booster shot on top of its current two-dose COVID-19 vaccine.
It would also experiment with using its experimental shot and the combined shot as primary inoculations against COVID-19, administering two-dose regimens for people who haven’t yet received a shot and haven’t been infected.
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Moderna also raised its expected COVID-19 vaccine production for this year to 700 million COVID-19 vaccine doses globally from 600 million, and was exploring further improvements to its manufacturing process that could raise production in 2021 to as much as 1 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses.
According to Moderna, it was also investing in additional manufacturing capacity that should bring its 2022 global production to around 1.4 billion COVID-19 vaccine doses from a previous projection of 1.2 billion.
Moreover, Moderna said that it had shipped a total of about 60 million COVID-19 vaccine doses so far, adding that 55 million of which had gone to the United States.
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