Europe approves first non-Covid messenger RNA vaccine

2024-08-23 19:36:14

The European Commission gave its approval, Friday August 23, to the marketing of the messenger RNA vaccine, mResvia, intended to protect adults over 60 against the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), the main cause of bronchiolitis. This is the first product to receive this technology, apart from the authorized Covid vaccines, to receive approval on the computer.

Four years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic opened the way to the use of messenger RNA, the first two vaccines were developed to fight the virus, Comirnaty from the German BioNTech and pharmaceutical group Pfizer, and Spikevax from the American company Moderna, which get. from this technology. The availability of a new messenger RNA vaccine, this time against RSV, confirms the usefulness of this technology. It also allows Moderna, the developer of this product, to strengthen its position as a specialist in the field.

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The European agreement is based on data from a clinical trial of mResvia conducted on approximately 37,000 adults aged 60 years in twenty-two countries. This shows, among other things, the effectiveness of the vaccine of 83.7% over a median period of 3.7 months against lower respiratory infections due to RSV.

New product for Moderna

Above all, this vaccine offers Moderna the opportunity to expand its business. Until now, the laboratory could only rely on revenues from its successful Covid vaccine, the only other product in its portfolio to have a sales mandate. But since the end of the pandemic, sales that were once booming have fallen due to falling global demand. In early August, the biotech lowered its financial forecasts for 2024 from 4 billion dollars (3.57 billion euros) to between 3 and 3.5 billion dollars, citing sales expectations linked to Covid weaker than expected.

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Will the rise of mResvia help breathe new life into the laboratory? Nothing is certain, because the United States must face strong competition in the bronchiolitis vaccine market. Many laboratories have worked in recent years to develop products to combat RSV, a common virus in the winter season, and which can cause serious complications in children and elderly people, whose immune systems are weak. delicate.