Moderna’s vaccine against the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, reduced the rate of lower respiratory disease in people over 60 in a Phase 3 trial, the company said Tuesday.
The result will increase competition in a soon-to-be crowded market. The drug giants Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline have already presented results for their RSV vaccines in older individuals, and have been preparing for what could be a brisk marketing battle.
“I’ve been working on RSV for a long time and there’s been periodic promises of having an RSV vaccine around the corner, which has never proven to be true,” said Larry Anderson, a professor of pediatric infectious disease at Emory University School of Medicine. “To have three vaccines with a good chance to be licensed and this kind of efficacy data is really pretty amazing.”
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