(Reuters) -A panel of outside experts to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention voted unanimously to recommend the use of updated COVID-19 vaccines, as authorized by the FDA, in those aged six months and older for the 2024-25 immunization campaign.
The agency’s recommendation comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration asked vaccine manufacturers earlier this month to update the new shots to target the KP.2 variant, if feasible, instead of the JN.1 lineage it had sought to target earlier.
The FDA’s independent advisers, the European health regulator and the World Health Organization, had sought to target the JN.1 strain with the updated vaccines.
Moderna and Novavax — makers of two of the three COVID vaccines — had submitted their applications to the FDA for updating the fall 2024 season shots targeting the JN.1 strain.
Novavax had said manufacturing was underway for a vaccine tailored against JN.1 and it could not have a shot for another strain ready this fall.
Pfizer and Moderna make messenger RNA vaccines, which can be developed more quickly than Novavax’s protein-based shot.
Novavax applied for authorization of its JN.1-targeting vaccine earlier this month and said it could be made available by mid-July. The shot showed broad cross-neutralizing antibodies against multiple variants, including KP.2 and KP.3, according to the company.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Mariam Sunny in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)
