Biden administration, pharmaceutical companies discuss vaccine options for omicron variant

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that President Joe Biden’s administration is in talks with Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer about plans that have multiple contingencies.

News 12 Staff

Dec 4, 2021, 12:18 PM

Updated 1,036 days ago

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Pharmaceutical manufacturers are investigating how their vaccines might protect against the omicron COVID-19 variant.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that President Joe Biden’s administration is in talks with Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer about plans that have multiple contingencies.
“One is to rev up the production of the vaccines that they already have. The next is to make, for example, a bivalent, where you have the vaccine against both the ancestral strain and the new variant. And the other is to make a variant specific boost,” Fauci said.
If a new booster is needed, Fauci said the Food and Drug Administration would decide the regulatory process. He said it could fall under the same criteria as the flu vaccines, where they change yearly based on the most prevalent strains.