- As more contagious variants of COVID spread across the United States, Pfizer is exploring the usefulness of a third booster dose.
- Pfizer expects a third dose of vaccine to “increase the antibody response 10 to 20 times”.
- Pfizer and Moderna are planning to increase vaccine production and ship 140 million doses to the United States in the next 4.5 weeks.
Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine is 95% effective in preventing a COVID infection, a surprising number that surprised even the company’s research team. Still, with more contagious variants from the UK and South Africa already spreading across the U.S., Pfizer is currently researching what kind of impact a third booster dose would have on the immune system’s response to COVID. Currently, the Pfizer vaccine requires the administration of two defined doses three weeks apart.
According to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, the researchers hope that a third booster injection can “increase the antibody response by 10 to 20 times”.
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NBC News reports:
The new study will monitor the safety and efficacy of a third dose in two age groups: 18 to 55 and 65 to 85. Participants come from a group of people who were among the first to receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine: people who volunteered for Pfizer’s initial Phase 1/2 clinical trial, which started in May.
“We want to not only protect during this immediate pandemic, but to prepare for what we like to call the unpleasant variant of the future, if one appears,” said Pfizer senior vice president William Gruber recently.
It is also important to note that Pfizer has been talking to regulators about the development of a tailored vaccine to combat new variants of COVID-19, and in particular the South African strain. The hope is that modified mRNA vaccines will be able to get quick regulatory approval, similar to how there are new flu vaccines every year based on new strains.
The company said the following in a press release this week:
Separately, in order to be prepared for any potential future strain changes, Pfizer and BioNTech are in ongoing discussions with regulatory authorities, including the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency, the regarding a clinical study that allows registration to evaluate a specific vaccine for a variant with a modified mRNA sequence.
This study would use a new construction of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine based on the B.1.351 strain, first identified in South Africa. This could position companies to update the current vaccine quickly if the need for protection against COVID-19 strains arises. circulating. In line with the updated guidance issued by the FDA on the emergency use of vaccines to prevent COVID-19, which provides recommendations for evaluating a modified vaccine to handle variants, companies hope to seek validation of future one-way modified mRNA vaccines similar to what is currently in effect for influenza vaccines.
Meanwhile, there is a strong possibility that Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose COVID-19 vaccine will arrive early next month. The J&J vaccine in clinical trials has been shown to be 85% effective in preventing severe episodes of COVID and 66% effective when considering moderate cases.
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A longtime Mac user and Apple enthusiast, Yoni Heisler has been writing about Apple and the technology industry in general for more than 6 years. His writings were published in Edible Apple, Network World, MacLife, Macworld UK and, more recently, TUAW. When not writing and analyzing the latest happenings with Apple, Yoni enjoys watching Improv shows in Chicago, playing football and cultivating new addictions to TV shows, the most recent examples being The Walking Dead and Broad City.