Moderna confirms Singapore supply deal as MOH ramps up vaccine efforts

Singapore

BIOTECHNOLOGY company Moderna on Monday confirmed it signed a supply agreement with Singapore's Ministry of Health for its Covid-19 vaccine candidate mRNA-1273.

The move comes as the Republic's health ministry moves to secure early access to vaccines for the local population.

The Singapore government has signed advanced purchase agreements with Moderna, Pfizer-BioNTech and Sinovac, and are in discussions with a few other pharmaceutical companies, the multi-ministry task force said on Monday.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only one authorised for pandemic use by Singapore's Health Sciences Authority.

The first batch of the vaccines will arrive in Singapore by end-December 2020 and subsequent batches from the three companies will arrive over the course of next year, the taskforce said.

Headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Moderna specialises in medicines made of messenger RNA (mRNA). These medicines direct the body's cells to produce intracellular, membrane or secreted proteins that can have a therapeutic or preventive benefit.

Stephane Bancel, Moderna's chief executive, said: "We continue to advance the clinical development of mRNA-1273 and the recent positive primary efficacy analysis from our Phase 3 COVE study is an encouraging step forward as we work together to address this global health emergency by delivering a vaccine to the people of Singapore and around the world."

The third-phase study, known as the COVE study, enrolled more than 30,000 participants in the US. Data from the study demonstrated the efficacy rate of 94.1 per cent against Covid-19 and 100 per cent against severe Covid-19.

Efficacy was consistent across age, race and ethnicity, and gender demographics in the 196 observed cases of Covid-19, Moderna said.

Based on prior analysis, the most common solicited adverse reactions include injection site pain, fatigue, myalgia, arthralgia, headache, and erythema/redness at the injection site. Solicited adverse reactions increased in frequency and severity in the mRNA-1273 group after the second dose, Moderna noted.

Safety data continue to accrue and the study continues to be monitored by an independent, National Institutes of Health (NIH)-appointed data safety monitoring board, Moderna said.