Moderna announced an expanded supply agreement with the Ministry of Health of Israel for an additional four million doses of mRNA-1273, Moderna’s vaccine candidate against COVID-19. The Israeli government has now secured six million doses of mRNA-1273. This agreement will support the ongoing efforts by the Ministry to secure early access to a COVID-19 vaccine for the people of Israel. The company has already initiated the rolling regulatory review process with the Ministry of Health in Israel.
On November 30, Moderna announced that the primary efficacy analysis of the Phase 3 study of mRNA-1273 conducted on 196 cases confirmed the high efficacy observed at the first interim analysis. The data analysis indicates a vaccine efficacy of 94.1 per cent. Safety data continue to accrue and the study continues to be monitored by an independent, NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB). Based on prior analysis, the most common solicited adverse reactions included injection site pain, fatigue, myalgia, arthralgia, headache, and erythema/redness at the injection site. Solicited adverse reactions increased in frequency and severity in the mRNA-1273 group after the second dose. The Phase 3 study, known as the COVE study, enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the US and is being conducted in collaboration with NIAID part of the NIH and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the US Department of Health and Human Services.