As bi­va­lent boost­er up­take crawls, Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech start ear­ly-stage pan-vari­ant tri­al

Pfiz­er and BioN­Tech an­nounced Thurs­day morn­ing that they be­gan a Phase I tri­al of a new pan-vari­ant Covid vac­cine com­bined with their Omi­cron-spe­cif­ic boost­er, hope­ful­ly pro­duc­ing a longer-last­ing and more ef­fec­tive shot.

Un­like pre­vi­ous it­er­a­tions of mR­NA Covid vac­cines, the new vac­cine doesn’t en­code for the virus’ hall­mark spike pro­tein. In­stead, it pro­duces oth­er vi­ral pro­teins that Covid vari­ants have in com­mon and that rarely mu­tate.

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