Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc (INO)

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Moderna shares jumped about more than 6% after the company’s CEO said Monday that it’s working on a booster that targets the omicron variant of Covid-19 “with public health leaders around the world,” targeting a fall rollout. The booster will enter clinical trials soon, he added. The original two-dose vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer, on the other hand, are only about 10% effective at preventing symptomatic infection 20 weeks after the second dose, according to the study. He said Moderna had between 50 million and 100 million doses waiting for shipment to low-income countries on any given day in November.

The main challenge now is distribution, or actually getting those shots into people’s arms.

“There’s been a lot of issues on the distribution [cold chain requirement] and deployment of those vaccines,” Bancel said.

The Moderna CEO said the African Union decided to turn down 60 million doses the company reserved for the continent for the second quarter.