Aug 27 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Moderna, Novavax-Sanofi and Pfizer-BioNTech’s updated COVID vaccines, the companies said on Thursday, after an advisory panel recommended that the shots should target the dominant XFG variant.
• Four COVID shots had been approved for use in the United States: Moderna’s mNEXSPIKE and Spikevax, Pfizer-BioNTech’s, Comirnaty – all three mRNA-based vaccines – and Novavax-Sanofi’s, protein-based shot that takes longer to manufacture.
• All manufacturers previously said they could make the updated shot in time for the 2026-27 immunization season.
• In May, eight of the committee’s nine experts voted in favor of targeting the XFG variant for the 2026-27 campaign.
• For the 2025-26 season, the FDA had recommended COVID shots target LP.8.1 – a subvariant of the JN.1 strain.
• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID dashboard, new data on strains is currently unavailable due to low sequencing submissions.
(Reporting by Christy Santhosh in Bengaluru; Editing by Joyjeet Das)
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