Israel authorises import of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine

The Israeli Ministry of Health (MOH) has granted authorisation to import Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine in the country.

Co-developed by Moderna and NIAID Vaccine Research Center investigators, the mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 encodes for a prefusion stabilised form of the Spike (S) protein.

The latest development comes from a rolling submission of data and the totality of scientific evidence shared by Moderna, including data from the Phase III clinical study.

Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said: “Today’s authorisation is a landmark moment in our company’s history and in the global fight against Covid-19.

“This is the third regulatory authorisation for the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, and its first outside of North America.”

The MOH secured Six million doses of vaccine and first deliveries should commence soon.

Israel became the third country to approve the COVID-19 Vaccine Moderna, following the US and Canada.

At present, authorisations are under review in the European Union, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK.

In December, Moderna received authorisation for its Covid-19 vaccine from Health Canada for the immunisation of individuals aged 18 years and above.

The company also anticipates ramping up production of its Covid-19 vaccine by 100 million more doses this year.

Earlier, Moderna had set its base-case global production estimate at 500 million doses of the vaccine.

Furthermore, it will continue to invest and increase the number of staff to produce up to approximately one billion doses for this year.

Moderna intends to supply about 100 million doses to the US by the end of the first quarter of this year. So far, the company delivered approximately 18 million doses to the government.

Moderna chief technical operations and quality officer Juan Andres said: “Our effectiveness in providing early supply to the US and Canadian governments and our ability to increase baseline production estimates for 2021 are both signals that our scale-up of mRNA vaccine production is a success.”