New NIH Program to Speed Vaccine, Antibody Upgrades to Variants

Covid-19 vaccines and monocolonal antibodies will adapt quickly to fight off new strains of the virus—if that need emerges—under a new NIH program.

Leaders at the National Institutes of Health told Bloomberg Law they’re using ACTIV, the public-private partnership for accelerating Covid-19 therapeutic interventions and vaccines, to coordinate data from industry, government, and academia to determine whether the new strains make a vaccine or monoclonal antibody less responsive.

“We may not ever need to go to an upgraded version in order to address the mutants. But we might,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and ...