Moderna to supply Singapore with COVID-19 vaccine

Moderna has made a deal with the Ministry of Health of Singapore to supply mRNA-1273, Moderna’s vaccine candidate against COVID-19, to support ongoing efforts to secure access to a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine for the people of Singapore.

Stéphane Bancel, Moderna’s Chief Executive Officer, said: “We continue to advance the clinical development of mRNA-1273 and the recent positive primary efficacy analysis from our Phase 3 COVE study is an encouraging step forward as we work together to address this global health emergency by delivering a vaccine to the people of Singapore and around the world.”

The data from the Phase 3 COVE study involving 30,000 participants demonstrated efficacy of 94.1% against COVID-19 and 100% against severe COVID-19, Moderna has said. Efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity, and gender demographics in the 196 observed cases of COVID-19. Safety data continue to accrue and the study continues to be monitored by an independent, NIH-appointed Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB). Based on prior analysis, the most common solicited adverse reactions included injection site pain, fatigue, myalgia, arthralgia, headache, and erythema/redness at the injection site. Solicited adverse reactions increased in frequency and severity in the mRNA-1273 group after the second dose.

Furthermore, the Phase 3 study, known as the COVE study, enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the U.S. and is being conducted in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), part of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Moderna plans to submit data from the Phase 3 COVE study to a peer-reviewed publication, Moderna said.

The company has recently announced data showing that mRNA-1273 remains stable at 2° to 8°C (36° to 46°F), the temperature of a standard home or medical refrigerator, for 30 days. Stability testing supports this extension from an earlier estimate of 7 days. mRNA-1273 remains stable at -20° C (-4°F) for up to six months, at refrigerated conditions for up to 30 days and at room temperature for up to 12 hours. Moderna is scaling up global manufacturing to be able to deliver approximately 500 million doses per year and possibly up to 1 billion doses per year, beginning in 2021.

Over the past nine years, Moderna has invested in creating and developing a novel platform for designing and manufacturing a new class of mRNA-based vaccines. The investments in this proprietary platform have enabled Moderna to expeditiously create, manufacture and clinically develop mRNA-1273 to potentially address the current COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna said.