Moderna agrees to supply variant-specific Covid jabs to low income countries

American pharmaceutical company, Moderna Inc and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, has agreed to provide a new variant-adapted Covid-19 vaccine to the global scheme aiming to deliver shots to the world's poorest people.

To ensure low- and middle-income countries have access to updated variant-specific Covid-19 vaccines, Gavi and Moderna has agreed to create new framework enabling Gavi to purchase up to 100 million doses in 2023 on behalf of the COVAX Facility. All doses are offered at Moderna's lowest-tiered price.

The biotech company and vaccine alliance GAVI will cancel their existing supply deal for vaccines based on the original coronavirus strain. Instead, Moderna will supply up to 100 million doses of its new, variant-adapted vaccines at its lowest available price from 2023. 

"Gavi and our COVAX partners have been pivotal in ensuring the global supply of Covid-19 vaccines, leading the largest and most rapid vaccine rollout in history,' said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive Officer of Moderna. "We are proud of our role in this endeavor and will continue to support COVAX's mission to ensure broad, affordable, and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines across low- and middle-income countries as we move towards a world where Covid-19 is endemic."

"This agreement with Moderna represents a critical step for equitable access, helping COVAX adjust its portfolio to current demand and ensuring lower income countries have access to variant-containing vaccines to use where appropriate," said Dr Seth Berkley, CEO of Gavi, which leads procurement and delivery at scale for COVAX.

Moderna's press release mentioned that the vaccine maker's agreement with Gavi has led to the supply of nearly 70 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to the 92 Gavi COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC) low- and middle-income countries, in addition to the Company facilitating the donation of more than 100 million doses to these countries. This has played a key role in ensuring that the global supply of Covid-19 vaccines is sufficient to underpin the overarching objective of supporting equitable, full vaccination of adult and adolescent populations globally.