June twenty _ fifth$Pfizer Inc (PFE.US) $Vs.$BioNTech (BNTX.US) $It has been announced that the two new vaccines jointly developed will significantly improve the protective effectiveness against O'Micron. Preliminary laboratory studies showed that the updated vaccine was also effective against BA.4 and BA.5 strains.

According to press releases from the two companies, one of the new vaccines is univalent and the other is bivalent. The study found that, compared with the company's current COVID-19 vaccine, the immune response induced by the two new vaccines significantly increased the neutralization effect against the Omicron BA.1 mutant.

One month after vaccination, one dose of monovalent Omicron vaccine (30 μ g and 60 μ g) as booster immunization could increase the geometric mean titer (GMT) of neutralizing antibody by 13.5 and 19.6 times, respectively. A dose of 2-valent Omicron vaccine (30 μ g and 60 μ g) could increase GMT by 9.1 and 10.9 times, respectively. At the same time, both vaccines showed good tolerance to people who had been vaccinated with other Omicron vaccines.

The study was conducted among 1234 adults aged 56 or older.

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech also said that preliminary laboratory studies have shown that the two new vaccines are also effective against new variants of BA.4 and BA.5, but the effect is weaker than the immune protective effect on BA.1.

The data showed that during the live SARS-CoV-2 virus neutralization test in the sera of subjects aged 56 and above, it was found that the titer of BA.4/5 in the neutralized serum was about 3 times lower than that of BA.1. The two companies said they would continue to collect more test data on O'Micron 's BA.4/5 mutant in the coming weeks.

Recently, the number of new cases caused by the new Omicron subtype continues to rise in some areas. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subtypes accounted for more than 20% of new cases in the week ended June 11, an increase of 66% over the previous week. The prevalence of new subtypes continues to rise in France, Britain, Germany and many other European countries. As of June 17, the BA.5 mutation station accounted for more than 80 per cent of new infections in Portugal. Previously, the European Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified BA.4 and BA.5 as VOC and warned that BA.4 and BA.5 may become the dominant strains in Europe in the future.

Ugur Sahin, CEO and co-founder of BioNTech, said:

"Omicron has newly evolved subvariants that have surpassed the BA.1 variants and show a growing potential for immune escape. We will remain vigilant and prepare and adjust our Omicron vaccine to adapt to emerging subvariants based on experimental data. "

Pfizer Inc and BioNTech said they had submitted the existing COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty as additional data for enhanced immunization to regulators.

FDA's advisory committee will discuss the new reinforcer next Tuesday and will discuss it with a coalition of international drug regulators on Thursday.