FDA may greenlight updated Covid-19 vaccines as soon as next week, sources say

The US Food and Drug Administration is poised to sign off as soon as next week on updated Covid-19 vaccines targeting more recently circulating strains of the virus, according to two sources familiar with the matter, as the country experiences its largest summer wave in two years.

The US Food and Drug Administration is poised to sign off as soon as next week on updated Covid-19 vaccines targeting more recently circulating strains of the virus, according to two sources familiar with the matter, as the country experiences its largest summer wave in two years. The agency is expected to greenlight updated mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech that target a strain of the virus called KP.2, said the sources, who declined to be named because the timing information isn’t public. It was unclear whether the agency simultaneously would authorize Novavax’s updated shot, which targets the JN.1 strain. The move would be several weeks ahead of last year’s version of the vaccine, which got FDA signoff on September 11. “Now is the time to get a dose with this surge,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN. Osterholm said on his podcast last week that he recently got a dose of last season’s vaccine in order to increase his immunity while the virus is circulating at such high levels and amid uncertainty around when new shots would become available. He added that he’ll now wait to get the updated one in four months, the interval recommended by health officials.