Moderna CEO expects 'material' drop in vaccine efficacy against Omicron - FT

The head of one of the world´s leading vaccine manufacturers predicted that the Omicron variant of Covid-19 would result in a "material" decline in efficacy.

"All the scientists I've talked to [...] are like 'this is not going to be good'," Stephane Bancel, the chief executive officer of Moderna told the Financial Times in an interview.

The researcher also confided that most experts had not expected such an evolved variant to appear for another one to two years, adding that it could take "several months" to produce a vaccine tailored specifically to Omicron at scale.

Hence, he broached the possibility that providing stronger boosters to the elderly and immunodepressed should perhaps be an option.

Could Moderna and rival mRNA-vaccine manufacturer Pfizer come up with 1.0bn doses of a new vaccine by next week? No, he said. By summer? "Sure" was his answer.

He also hit back at criticism of the company due to the lack of vaccine supplies in Africa, saying it had been a US government decision to allot itself 60% of production.

Furthermore, there was in fact a surplus of jabs earmarked for Africa. As many as 70m doses of Moderna´s vaccine were sitting in warehouses, he said, because COVAX, the international body charged with supplying low-income nations, or individual governments had not taken delivery.

The reasons for that were multiple, ranging from a lack of the necessary customs documents, refrigerator space or the challenge of actually getting doses in people's arms.