The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said on Wednesday it aimed to approve a Pfizer/BioNTech Covid vaccine as early as the fall targeting two sub-variants of the fast-spreading Omicron strain.
The Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 sublines are driving a surge in Covid-19 cases in Europe and the United States, prompting the WHO to declare last month that the pandemic was “far from ‘over’.
In September?
The European regulator said it released a review on Monday of an adapted version of Pfizer’s anti-Covid serum targeting these two sub-variants, which are more easily transmitted and evade the immune system more easily than earlier strains.
“The EMA expects to receive an application for the adapted BA.4/5 vaccine developed by Pfizer/BioNTech, which will be evaluated for possible fast-track approval in the fall,” an EMA spokesperson said in an email.
It should come “shortly after” the expected approval of two more tailored vaccines by Pfizer and rival Moderna, which target the original strain of Covid-19 and Omicron’s earlier BA.1 subvariant, the Guardian said.
Pfizer and Moderna had submitted separate approval requests for those vaccines on July 22, the spokesman said. The EMA has previously said that the first sera targeting Omicron could be approved in September.
Source: BFM TV
