By Berkeley Lovelace Jr. -
NBC News
Pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech announced Tuesday that they have launched a clinical trial to test a COVID-19 vaccine modified to protect against the omicron variant.
The drugmakers aim to enroll up to 1,420 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 55 in the trial, which will test whether the specific omicron vaccine is safe and generates a strong immune response.
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Participants will be divided into three groups — fully vaccinated, fully vaccinated and boosted, and unvaccinated — which will determine whether they receive one, two or three doses of the modified vaccine.
The companies also said they hope to launch a similar study in the United States to test the vaccine in people over the age of 55.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published new research on Friday concluding that a booster dose of current vaccines provides strong protection against severe variant disease. which is spreading rapidly, accounting for virtually all new cases in the United States.
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The CDC studies also suggested that existing boosters offered "significant protection" against both infection and symptomatic disease, although protection was greater during the delta surge compared to the omicron surge.
Although existing vaccines can protect people against some of the worst symptoms of COVID-19, drugmakers have said they will continue to develop variant-specific vaccines should they be needed.
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John Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, said modified vaccines could be important in a "worst-case scenario," where the variant mutates to be as deadly as the delta variant.
“That scenario is not impossible.
If it occurs, the new variant would kill many vaccinated people and change the face of the pandemic for the worse,” he stated.
In other words, the new trial could be seen as "an insurance policy," he said.
Moore added that by the time the trial results are ready, public health officials and outside experts should know more about the trajectory of the pandemic.
Will it remain the dominant variant or will it become a minor factor in the pandemic?
Will another variant more related to those that appeared last year arise?
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"We may not know that answer soon, but ultimately it is relevant to whether an omicron-based vaccine will be useful," he said.