Moderna Inc. recently announced to have started giving adult patients its Omicron-specific COVID-19 vaccine booster shots as a part of a clinical trial. The announcement comes just one day after Pfizer and BioNTech started their clinical study of a customized vaccination that targets the Omicron variant.

The Phase 2 trial, which is Moderna's first human trial for the Omicron-specific vaccination, will evaluate the vaccine’s safety, tolerability, and immune response in adults.

Interestingly, Moderna's existing booster shot is known to offer protection against the new variant, especially against severe sickness, according to the lab data and research released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But recent data published in the New England Journal of Medicine shows that six months after giving the Moderna booster, the antibodies' ability to neutralize the Omicron variant has dropped six times compared to the original strain.

According to the CDC, the highly contagious variant now accounts for nearly all new COVID-19 cases in the United States.

People who received two doses of Moderna's vaccine six months ago as well as those who had received two doses and a booster shot approximately three months ago are both eligible to participate in the clinical trial. The company intends to enroll about 300 people in each arm of the trial, which will take place at 24 locations across the United States.

Experts believe Moderna's trial will allow scientists to determine how beneficial it is to train the immune system to target the new variant.

The reduction in Omicron neutralizing antibodies reported six months after booster is enough to allow the virus to initiate an infection, but the immune response remains strong enough to handle it quite well in the majority of people.

Moderna has previously stated that it is in talks with public health officials regarding the possibility of distributing Omicron-based booster shots by fall this year.

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https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/omicron-moderna-starts-study-variant-specific-covid-booster-rcna13682