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A group of independent advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) voted unanimously to recommend changes to the flu vaccines this week to reflect only the currently circulating viral strains, a move that will potentially boost vaccine supplies.
On Tuesday, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee recommended that quadrivalent flu vaccines be converted into trivalent vaccines for the 2024–2025 season.
The group recommended against adding the vaccine component that targeted the B/Yamagata lineage in current four-in-one shots.
B/Yamagata strain has not been detected since March 2020 amid COVID lockdowns and social restrictions that appeared to have impacted its transmission.
The researchers have pointed out that its removal from vaccines would increase the annual production capacity from ~500M doses of the quadrivalent shots to 700M of trivalent vaccines.
Flu vaccine makers include GSK (NYSE:GSK), Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY), CSL Limited (OTCQX:CSLLY), and AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN). Pfizer (PFE)/ BioNTech (BNTX), Moderna (MRNA), and Novavax (NVAX) are among the drugmakers studying combined flu and COVID vaccines.
