Moderna doses 1st participants in study of COVID-19 vaccine in adolescents

Moderna has started dosing participants in a study examining its COVID-19 vaccine candidate in adolescents.

The company announced Thursday the beginning of this trial that will enroll 3,000 U.S. participants to study the safety and efficacy of the coronavirus vaccine in adolescents aged 12 to less than 18, Reuters reports.

"Our goal is to generate data in the spring of 2021 that will support the use of mRNA-1273 in adolescents in advance of the 2021 school year," Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said.

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Moderna previously announced that a late-stage trial showed its COVID-19 vaccine candidate is almost 95 percent effective in adults, and the company has applied for an emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration. It's one of two companies that applied for FDA authorization for a COVID-19 vaccine, the other being Pfizer.

Bancel also said Thursday that this "adolescent study will help us assess the potential safety and immunogenicity of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate in this important younger age population," adding, "we hope we will be able to provide a safe vaccine to provide protection to adolescents so they can return to school in a normal setting."