Moderna has reported that its combined flu and Covid vaccine has passed a vital part of final-stage scientific checks.
Moderna’s chief executive Stephane Bancel told BBC that the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) vaccine could be made widely available in 2026 – or even 2025.
„We are very delighted about the results, because it’s the first time in the world that a company is able to show positive phase-three results combining in a single dose flu and Covid vaccine,” he specified.
Competitors Pfizer and BioNTech are testing a similar two-in-one mRNA vaccine against flu and Covid.
Scientists hope mRNA vaccines will be faster to make and update than the current ones used against flu, and be a better match for ever-changing strains.
In the continuing Moderna trial, the mRNA-1083 jab produced a higher immune response than the licensed comparator vaccines, reports the BBC.
It matched or bettered currently approved flu jabs, including high-dose ones designed for older people.
And it was better than Moderna’s existing Covid booster, Spikevax, at making the body produce disease-fighting antibodies – probably because it had been designed to fight more recent variants circulating around the world, Mr Bancel told BBC News in an interview.
Professor John Tregoning, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said work on a dual vaccine was „a promising direction of travel”, but that the science world awaited the full data for scrutiny.
Moderna is also developing an unprecedented mRNA vaccine against cytomegalovirus, for which it hopes to have late-stage trial results this autumn. Cytomegalovirus can cause problems in infants and people with weakened immune systems.
