Drugmaker Pfizer (PFE) has launched a clinical trial to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of a vaccine that targets the Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The clinical trial is being undertaken with Pfizer’s partner BioNTech (BNTX) and comes as concerns grow that the current vaccines aren’t holding up against infections and mild illness caused by the newest strain of COVID-19 that was discovered two months ago.
Pfizer has said previously that it hopes to have commercially available a vaccine targeting COVID-19 variants by March of this year. The goal is to develop a vaccine that provides durable protection against COVID-19 and its variants, the companies said in a written statement.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found in a study published last week that a booster dose of Pfizer’s vaccine was 90% effective at preventing hospitalization from Omicron 14 days after the third shot was administered.
Pfizer and BioNTech’s latest clinical study will evaluate up to 1,420 participants.
The Omicron variant has dozens of mutations, many of them on the spike protein that the virus uses to invade human cells. The current vaccines, developed in 2020 against the original virus strain, target the spike. It becomes more difficult for vaccine-induced antibodies to block the virus as the spike mutates further and further from the original strain.
Omicron, first detected in Botswana and South Africa in November, has spread faster than earlier variants of COVID-19, causing an unprecedented wave of infection around the world.
The World Health Organization said yesterday (January 24) that there have been more than 80 million COVID-19 cases reported since the Omicron variant was identified just nine weeks ago — more than were reported in all of 2020.
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