STAT's Helen Branswell Reports Promising News, Out Of Moderna's mRNA Pipeline, For An Mpox Vaccine That Is Safe -- Even For HIV+ People...

At present, it is very dangerous to use a "live-attenuated" Mpox vaccine, in immuno-compromised humans. All current standard of care Mpox vaccines employ the live attenuated manufacturing method.

So today, Helen Branswell's reporting is a real. . . scoop. Moderna, the mRNA COVID vax juggernaut, has applied that learning to develop an mRNA (non-live) Mpox vaccine candidate. Clinical trials are underway.

But is seems more protective in early returns, and it should be safe to administer even to people living with HIV. [There is overlap here since a fair bit of the suspected transmission path is among men who are intimate with other men.] So, this is truly a potentially life-saving break through, given that in the DRC, mortality rates approach 10%, for people infected with the Clade Ib (more lethal) strain of Mpox.

Here's that Branswell / Stat scoop:

. . .The vaccine manufacturer Moderna reported in the journal Cell that a messenger RNA-based mpox vaccine that it is developing was more protective than a vaccine made using the same platform as Bavarian Nordic’s Jynneos vaccine in a study in which non-human primates were vaccinated, then deliberately infected with mpox. . . .

The vaccine targets four proteins that are found in all known poxviruses and that are critical to the life cycle of poxviruses, said Galit Alter, Moderna’s vice president for immunology research and a senior author of the study. Whereas other mpox vaccines use whole, weakened viruses to generate protection, mRNA-1769 focuses the immune response on these four key targets, the Moderna scientists said. . . .

Moderna’s vaccine is not currently licensed or even authorized for emergency use. Even if all goes well with the Phase 1/2 trial in the U.K., it will take some time before the vaccine could be used in the field. But it is clear from the past few years that the mpox threat is not going away, and that existing capacity to make vaccine to protect against it is too limited. And the response to the Covid-19 pandemic showed that scaling up production is easier for mRNA vaccines than it is for vaccine production that is based on growing stocks of virus, as MVA vaccine production is. . . .

Now you know. Trying to shake off the overnight news. . . with something. . . anything. . . really. . . positive now. Onward.

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