Moderna set to deliver 14m. more doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Canada

As Canadian officials plan for a worst-case scenario while expecting a new wave of coronavirus to drive up cases by more than 1,000 per day over the next week, the government upped its order with Moderna to secure an additional 14 million doses of its COVID-19 vaccine – totaling 56 million.Within Canada’s previous agreement, it held an option to increase its purchase depending on how Moderna’s trial phases panned out.Moderna’s vaccine candidate – mRNA-1273 – is nearing the finish line in its push to enroll 30,000 individuals in a late-stage trial of a novel coronavirus vaccine. As of last week, Moderna had enrolled 25,296 participants.Moderna, which made its protocols public on Thursday, said its first interim analysis of 53 infections is likely to come in November.”We appreciate the confidence in Moderna’s mRNA platform and the progress we are making with mRNA-1273, as demonstrated by the increased order from the Canadian government today,” said Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel. “This support, along with that of our stakeholders, drives us forward as we scale-up our global manufacturing and distribution network.”If Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine proves to be at least 70% effective, the company plans to seek emergency authorization for its use in high-risk groups, Bancel told Reuters.An independent safety board will take a first look at Moderna’s data as soon as a total of 53 people in the trial become infected with COVID-19. Moderna is projecting the interim analysis will occur in November, but it could come as early as October.If most of the people who got sick got the placebo shot, that would indicate the vaccine was protecting those inoculated and could be enough evidence to seek US regulatory approval for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).Moderna says that they remain on track to deliver the doses to Canadians beginning in 2021, sourced via Moderna’s European production capacity working with its new strategic partner in Lonza of Switzerland as well as ROVI of Spain.
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