Moderna: Teenage vaccine trials 'successful' says Dr Hilary
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The US drugmaker is reportedly in advanced talks with ministers over the opening of a new UK research and manufacturing centre. It is understood that Moderna would favour investing in a new facility rather than buying Britain’s existing site in Oxford. The investment would signal a massive vote of confidence in the UK, which has already enjoyed huge success with the jab created by AstraZeneca and Oxford University.
Moderna’s jab has soared in popularity in recent months, being used as a booster shot after recording impressive results.
It is one of three vaccines approved to be used – alongside AstraZeneca and Pfizer.
All three COVID-19 vaccines work by teaching the body to produce antibodies to fight the virus.
This is done by introducing a fragment of protein from the virus into the body.
Both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines use messenger ribonucleuc acid (mRNA) which is found in all cells in your body and tells your body how to make proteins.
Other Covid vaccines such as AstraZeneca’s work by using a different, non-harmful virus, to teach the immune system how to respond.
To date, the majority of Moderna’s vaccines are made at its factories in Boston, but the Telegraph reports it has been on the hunt for overseas sites.
It has already unveiled plans for a £370million factory in Africa, as well as sites in Canada and Australia.
Karen Anderson, from investment firm Morningstar, said: “Moderna is planning to be a significant player in the respiratory vaccine market for years to come, and is in the process of securing in-house manufacturing locations around the globe.
“This capacity will be helpful if the firm’s flu and RSV vaccines also receive regulatory approval down the road, for example, or also for any future pandemics.”
The Telegraph reports that Moderna chief executive Stephane Bancel met with Health Secretary Sajid Javid last week.
Mr Javid wrote on Twitter: “The UK is ideally placed to become a life sciences superpower, and collaboration with world-leading companies is crucial to this.”
It comes as experts warn that the pandemic is far from over.
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UK scientists have warned a future variant of COVID-19 could be much more dangerous and cause far higher numbers of deaths and cases of serious illness than Omicron.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to lift the remaining Covid restrictions in England next week.
Epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse said: “The Omicron variant did not come from the Delta variant.
“It came from a completely different part of the virus’s family tree.
“And since we don’t know where in the virus’s family tree a new variant is going to come from, we cannot know how pathogenic it might be. It could be less pathogenic but it could, just as easily, be more pathogenic.”
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