By LAURAN NEERGAARD and MATTHEW PERRONE
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Meals and Drug Administration is refusing to think about Moderna’s utility for a brand new flu vaccine made with Nobel Prize-winning mRNA expertise, the corporate introduced Tuesday.
The information is the newest signal of the FDA’s heightened scrutiny of vaccines underneath Well being Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., significantly these utilizing mRNA expertise, which he has criticized earlier than and after turning into the nation’s prime well being official.
Moderna acquired what’s referred to as a “refusal-to-file” letter from the FDA that objected to the way it performed a 40,000-person medical trial evaluating its new vaccine to one of many customary flu pictures used immediately. That trial concluded the brand new vaccine was considerably simpler in adults 50 and older than that customary shot.
The letter from FDA vaccine director Dr. Vinay Prasad stated the company doesn’t contemplate the appliance to include an “sufficient and well-controlled trial” as a result of it didn’t evaluate the brand new shot to “the best-available customary of care in the US on the time of the research.” Prasad’s letter pointed to some recommendation FDA officers gave Moderna in 2024, underneath the Biden administration, which Moderna didn’t observe.
In accordance with Moderna, that suggestions stated it was acceptable to make use of the standard-dose flu shot the corporate had chosen — however that one other model particularly advisable for seniors could be most popular for anybody 65 and older within the research. Nonetheless, Moderna stated, the FDA did comply with let the research proceed as initially deliberate.
The corporate stated it additionally had shared with FDA further knowledge from a separate trial evaluating the brand new vaccine towards a licensed high-dose shot used for seniors.
The FDA “didn’t determine any security or efficacy considerations with our product” and “doesn’t additional our shared aim of enhancing America’s management in growing progressive medicines,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel stated in an announcement.
It’s uncommon that FDA refuses to file an utility, significantly for a brand new vaccine, which requires firms and FDA workers to interact in months or years of discussions.
Moderna has requested an pressing assembly with FDA, and famous that it has utilized for the vaccine’s approval in Europe, Canada and Australia.
Within the final yr, FDA officers working underneath Kennedy have rolled again suggestions round COVID-19 pictures, added further warnings to the 2 main COVID vaccines — that are made with mRNA expertise — and eliminated critics of the administration’s strategy from an FDA advisory panel.
Kennedy introduced final yr that his division would cancel greater than $500 million in contracts and funding for the event of vaccines utilizing mRNA.
FDA for many years has allowed vaccine makers to rapidly replace their annual flu pictures to focus on the newest strains by exhibiting that they set off an immune response in sufferers. That’s a much more environment friendly strategy than operating long-term research monitoring whether or not sufferers get the flu and the way they fare. In an inside memo final yr, Prasad wrote that the streamlined methodology would now not be permitted – main greater than a dozen former FDA commissioners to pen an editorial condemning the statements.
The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives assist from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Division of Science Schooling and the Robert Wooden Johnson Basis. The AP is solely liable for all content material.
