Moderna said on Wednesday that it has started testing a booster injection developed particularly to combat Omicron. The news comes just one day after Pfizer and BioNTech announced the start of a clinical trial for their own Omicron-specific injection.

Moderna also revealed the findings of a tiny laboratory investigation indicating that the six-month protection provided by its approved booster injection against Omicron infections is likely to wane.

According to the business, the level of Omicron-fighting antibodies surged 20 times higher after a single dosage of the current booster than before the shot. These antibody levels had dropped more than sixfold after six months, albeit they were still detectable in all of the booster recipients tested.

Antibodies against the original virus dropped about threefold over the same time span, according to the business. 

On Wednesday, the findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

Moderna's chief executive, Stéphane Bancel, said in a statement that the persistence of Omicron-neutralizing antibodies six months after the booster dose "reassured" the business.

“Nonetheless, given the long-term threat demonstrated by Omicron’s immune escape, we are advancing our Omicron-specific variant vaccine booster candidate,” he said.

Despite Omicron's ability to resist the antibodies evoked by the approved vaccinations, which makes breakthrough infections more likely, the vaccines nevertheless give effective protection against hospitalization and mortality.

In roughly 600 individuals, Moderna's latest research will look at the safety and immunological responses to a single, Omicron-specific booster dosage. The vaccine's effectiveness will be evaluated in two groups of volunteers: those who have had two doses of Moderna's existing vaccination and those who have had two doses plus a booster.

The corporation did not specify a timeframe for when results would be available.

Pfizer said it expects to get findings in the first half of this year after enrolling up to 1,420 participants in the research.

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