Moderna announced on Aug. 23 that it has requested emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for its bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine targeted for the Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5.
The company’s latest so-called bivalent vaccine dose, mRNA-1273.222, targets the BA.4/BA.5 subvariants of the Omicron strain as well as the original strain of SARS-CoV-2 that first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019.
The Massachusetts-based drugmaker said that if its FDA application is cleared quickly, it would be ready to deliver the doses in the United States in September. The United States, as well as Britain and EU members, has been preparing for vaccination campaigns in the fall season in hopes of preventing future surges in COVID-19 cases….