CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts – Moderna on Wednesday announced it was scaling down production of its Covid-19 vaccine, an updated version of which was approved this week by US regulators, to align with lower post-pandemic demand.
Moderna is in talks with its partners that fill vials and syringes with its messenger RNA-based Covid-19 vaccines globally to downsize production, Dr Stephen Hoge, president of the Massachusetts-based company, said in an interview.
The downsizing, Dr Hoge added, will help Moderna adjust to the endemic phase of the disease, which has led to falling demand for Covid-19 vaccines as payers scale back orders for the shots.
Moderna predicted in August that US demand for the vaccine would reach 50 million to 100 million doses during autumn.
About 153.8 million Covid-19 shots were administered in the United States in 2022, according to the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Over the past couple of years, we’ve been in pandemic mode, producing a billion doses a year,” Dr Hoge said. “We’ve been waiting for the moment when the pandemic was officially behind us, that we would need to restructure that manufacturing footprint.”
Following the US Food and Drug Administration’s authorisation on Monday, Moderna said it would start shipping Covid-19 vaccine doses across the US.
The company has deals to supply other countries with its Covid-19 shot, including Britain, Canada and Japan, but does not yet have an agreement with the European Union, according to Dr Hoge, who also said Covid-19 is the focus of Moderna’s manufacturing agreement with China.
Dr Hoge said that while Moderna is urgently working on downsizing Covid-19 manufacturing, talks with third-party manufacturers – which will help produce the upcoming respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza vaccines that investors hope will start to replace Moderna’s waning Covid-19 revenue – could spill into 2024.
“These are relationships that we will need for decades to come,” Dr Hoge said.
Moderna declined to identify the partners, but has previously said those include Thermo Fisher, Sanofi and Catalent.
Moderna also announced on Wednesday that it has completed the regulatory submission for its RSV shot, and that its flu vaccine has generated a stronger immune response against all four A and B strains of the virus compared with traditional flu shots in a late-stage trial.
The effectiveness of Moderna’s flu vaccine was demonstrated across all age groups, including older patients, and was found to be safe and tolerable, according to the company.
Moderna also said it has found that its shot is equal or superior to Sanofi’s high-dose flu vaccine in a separate early head-to-head study. REUTERS
