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News Articles: moderna

Moderna headquarters, exterior view, in Cambridge, Mass.

U.S. pays $590 million to Moderna to speed up development of bird flu vaccine

The public health risk remains low, but bird flu variants have proven to be unpredictable, which is why the virus is a top priority for the federal government.

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  • Juliana Kim
Rachel Draddy receives treatment for Lyme disease

While rare, Lyme disease is debilitating. But there could soon be a vaccine

Symptoms of Lyme can include headaches, fatigue and joint pain, making a diagnosis difficult. While not common in Georgia, the disease can make people very sick. A new vaccine hopes to prevent it.   

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Vials of the reformulated Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 booster move through production at a plant in Kalamazoo, Mich.

CDC recommends new booster shots to fight omicron

CDC Director Rochelle Walensky has signed off on updated versions of the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines that target the original virus and the omicron subvariants.

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By:
  • Jane Greenhalgh and
  • Rob Stein
Vials of the newly reformulated COVID-19 vaccine booster are being readied by Pfizer for distribution now that the Food and Drug Administration has authorized the shots for people 12 and older.

FDA authorizes first revamp of COVID vaccines to target omicron

The new shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech target both the original strain of the coronavirus and the omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants that most people are catching now.

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  • Scott Hensley and
  • Rob Stein
A single-use syringe awaits to be filled with the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna has sued rival drugmakers for patent infringement.

Moderna sues Pfizer over COVID-19 vaccine patents

The vaccine maker alleges that its rivals Pfizer and BioNTech used some patented features of its mRNA technology to develop their COVID vaccines.

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By:
  • Carmel Wroth and
  • Joe Palca
A child receives the Pfizer BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine at the Fairfax County Government Center in Annandale, Va., in November 2021. A committee of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration recommended Wednesday that the agency expand authorization of COVID-19 vaccines to children as young as 6-months-old.

Advisers to the FDA back COVID vaccines for the youngest children

A committee of experts voted unanimously to recommend that the Food and Drug Administration authorize COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech for children as young as 6-months-old.

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  • Scott Hensley
A health care worker prepares the current COVID vaccine booster shots from Moderna in February. The company says a bivalent vaccine that combines the original strain with the omicron strain is the lead candidate for a fall vaccination campaign.

Moderna says its new 'bivalent' vaccine shows promise against COVID variants

The company says this version targets both the original coronavirus and the beta variant, and appears to provide broader and longer-lasting protection against different strains, including omicron.

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  • Rob Stein
A Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is prepared during a pop-up vaccine clinic at Cristo Rey Church in East Austin on July 24, 2021.

Moderna wants the FDA to authorize its COVID-19 vaccine for kids under 6

No deaths were reported in tests, and there were no signs of myocarditis, or heart inflammation, as a side effect.

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  • Ayana Archie
A resident receives a dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine at a health center in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Jan. 13. This week, Indonesia started a program to give booster shots to the elderly and people at risk of severe disease.

Booster longevity: Data reveals how long a third shot protects

Researchers in the U.K. have the first estimates for how long a third shot of the Pfizer vaccine will last. The findings are mixed.

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By:
  • Michaeleen Doucleff

Moderna says its COVID booster increases protection against omicron

Moderna said its current FDA-approved 50-microgram booster shot increased antibody levels against omicron 37-fold compared to pre-booster levels.

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By:
  • Jaclyn Diaz

Moderna says its COVID booster increases protection against omicron

Moderna said its current FDA-approved 50-microgram booster shot increased antibody levels against omicron 37-fold compared to pre-booster levels.

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By:
  • Jaclyn Diaz
People line up outside a free COVID-19 vaccination site that opened Friday in Washington, D.C. The local health department is stepping up vaccination and booster shots as more cases of the omicron variant are being identified in the United States.

Omicron boosters are in the works, but will they be needed?

Omicron has many more mutations than previous variants of concern, a fact that raises questions about how effective existing vaccines will be against the new form of the coronavirus.

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  • Sydney Lupkin
Nurse Sandra Lindsay celebrates after receiving her COVID-19 Pfizer vaccine booster at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York in October. Lindsay was the first person known to receive a COVID vaccine in the United States vaccination campaign — on Dec. 14, 2020. Her vaccination card is displayed at the COVID-19 exhibit in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.

Coronavirus FAQ: I just got a booster. Can I ... go crazy?

Does a booster shot mean that you can go back to ... normal? Or is there still a newish kind of normal to face?

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  • Sheila Mulrooney Eldred
The FDA review of Moderna's application for an emergency use authorization of its coronavirus vaccine in adolescents may not be completed before January, the company said.

The FDA is probing whether the Moderna vaccine can cause a rare side effect in teens

Moderna says the FDA is looking into reports of a rare side effect — myocarditis, or the inflammation of the heart muscle — in those who've gotten the shot.

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  • Joe Hernandez
Containers of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine doses, donated by the United States, arrive in Bogota, Colombia, in July. The U.S. plans to send more than a billion vaccines abroad by September 2022.

What the U.S. can — and cannot — do for vaccine equity per the State Department

The U.S. has pledged to deliver 1.1 billion doses of COVID vaccines to countries in need. Billions more are needed. NPR interviewed the State Department's global vaccine coordinator to learn more.

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  • NPR Staff