Covid-19 roundup: Mod­er­na dou­bles down on Covid-19 with new boost­er tri­als; Aus­tralia plans do­mes­tic pro­duc­tion of As­traZeneca vac­cine amid dis­tri­b­u­tion lag

As Mer­ck bows out of the glob­al race to de­vel­op vac­cines for Covid-19, Mod­er­na is dou­bling down to make sure they can quell new vari­ants that have re­cent­ly emerged and quick­ly spread.

The Cam­bridge, MA-based biotech put out word on Mon­day that in vi­vo stud­ies in­di­cate their mR­NA vac­cine works well enough against two strains first de­tect­ed in the UK and South Africa. But with a six-fold re­duc­tion in neu­tral­iz­ing titers ob­served against the lat­ter strain, the com­pa­ny is launch­ing a new study of a boost­er ver­sion to make sure it can do the job.

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