The FDA’s vac­cine ad­vi­so­ry com­mit­tee on Thurs­day vot­ed 19-0 in sup­port of ex­pand­ing Mod­er­na’s Covid-19 vac­cine EUA for boost­er dos­es for cer­tain high-risk in­di­vid­u­als. FDA is ex­pect­ed to au­tho­rize the Mod­er­na boost­er short­ly.

Sim­i­lar­ly to the Pfiz­er boost­er shot, Mod­er­na’s will like­ly be au­tho­rized for those old­er than 65, adults at high risk of se­vere Covid-19, and adults whose fre­quent in­sti­tu­tion­al or oc­cu­pa­tion­al ex­po­sure to SARS-CoV-2 puts them at high risk of se­ri­ous com­pli­ca­tions of Covid-19. But un­like the Pfiz­er ad­comm, where FDA had to scram­ble to get the com­mit­tee to vote in fa­vor of a boost­er, this com­mit­tee was unan­i­mous with the Mod­er­na shot.

Is­raeli sci­en­tists once again pre­sent­ed the lat­est in their ex­pe­ri­ence with boost­ers, which showed re­duced Covid-19 cas­es. Sev­er­al pan­elists praised how com­pelling the Is­raeli da­ta pre­sent­ed were.

Paul Of­fit

Paul Of­fit, a VRB­PAC pan­elist and pro­fes­sor of pe­di­atrics at Chil­dren’s Hos­pi­tal of Philadel­phia, called the da­ta clear for 70- to 79-year-olds, but said he was less im­pressed with the da­ta for those who are younger.

Oth­ers al­so ques­tioned the da­ta be­hind the boost­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly as for Mod­er­na is ap­ply­ing to ad­min­is­ter a half-dose of what was pro­vid­ed in the pri­ma­ry, two-shot se­ries.

“The da­ta we have is on­ly lim­it­ed to about 149 pa­tients on Mod­er­na. So I have some hes­i­ta­tion,” VRB­PAC mem­ber Jean­nette Lee, a pro­fes­sor of bio­sta­tis­tics at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Arkansas for Med­ical Sci­ences, said.

Pan­elist Er­ic Ru­bin, ed­i­tor in chief of the New Eng­land Jour­nal of Med­i­cine and an ex­pert on in­fec­tious dis­eases at Har­vard’s pub­lic health school, not­ed “the da­ta are not per­fect,” but these are “ex­tra­or­di­nary times.” He al­so re­it­er­at­ed the idea that the over­all ef­fect of a boost­er is much less than pri­ma­ry vac­cines, both here and abroad.

“We need to vac­ci­nate the un­vac­ci­nat­ed,” Ru­bin said.

Oth­er mem­bers of the com­mit­tee ex­plained how the Mod­er­na boost­er needs to win EUA as it wouldn’t make sense as a prac­ti­cal mat­ter to have a Pfiz­er boost­er and not one for Mod­er­na.

Pe­ter Marks

FDA’s top vac­cine leader Pe­ter Marks of­fered a sim­i­lar sen­ti­ment in not­ing that the CDC’s com­mit­tee, which is like­ly next up to re­view the Mod­er­na boost­er, may de­cide to fur­ther ma­nip­u­late the rec­om­men­da­tions from VRB­PAC, “but to the ex­tent that we can come to place that’ll be ac­cept­able for ACIP, that’ll be ap­pre­ci­at­ed.”

VRB­PAC pan­elist Steven Pergam, an ex­pert on in­fec­tious dis­eases at the Fred Hutchin­son Can­cer Re­search Cen­ter in Seat­tle, said he is “very sup­port­ive” of those with oc­cu­pa­tion­al Covid-19 risks re­ceiv­ing the boost­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the US seeks to pro­tect health in­sti­tu­tions from out­breaks.

For a look at all End­points News coro­n­avirus sto­ries, check out our spe­cial news chan­nel.

Vanda Pharmaceuticals is making a name for itself, at least in terms of suing the FDA.

The DC-headquartered firm on Monday filed its latest suit against the agency, with the company raising concerns over the FDA’s failure to grant a fast track designation for Vanda’s potential chronic digestive disorder drug tradipitant, which is a neurokinin 1 receptor antagonist.

Specifically, Vanda said FDA’s “essential point” in its one-page denial letter on the designation pointed to “the lack of necessary safety data,” which was “inconsistent with the criteria for … Fast Track designation.”

Janet Woodcock may have one of the most historically long and drug-intense tenures in FDA history, but her new role is outside of all things pharma and the once-acting FDA commissioner isn’t looking back.

“No I really don’t look back,” Woodcock told Endpoints News via email on Monday morning. “Yes I will be transitioning. Longer discussion on infrastructure needed.”

Pfizer and BioNTech said Monday that they’re ready to approach the FDA this week with early data for their booster shot for Covid-19 vaccine in the youngest age group (6 months to under 5 years), which showed 80.3% efficacy based on 10 symptomatic Covid cases identified beginning seven days after the third dose.

“The study suggests that a low 3-ug dose of our vaccine, carefully selected based on tolerability data, provides young children with a high level of protection against the recent COVID-19 strains,” Uğur Şahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech said in a statement. “We are preparing the relevant documents and expect completing the submission process to the FDA this week, with submissions to EMA and other regulatory agencies to follow within the coming weeks.”

After Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla announced last month that the world’s largest vaccine maker stopped producing doses of Covid-19 vaccines back in December, the institute is looking to expand.

The CEO told Reuters Monday that the company is considering establishing its first manufacturing plant in Africa in its next step toward global expansion after successfully mass producing and selling hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses out of its India-based facilities.