LONDON — A universal influenza vaccine developed by scientists at the Francis Crick Institute and manufactured by BioNTech showed 94% efficacy across all tested flu subtypes in a 45,000-participant Phase III clinical trial, the companies announced on Monday in a paper published in The Lancet.
The vaccine, which uses an mRNA platform targeting a conserved region of the influenza virus's internal proteins rather than the rapidly mutating surface proteins targeted by current seasonal vaccines, maintained efficacy across all 18 known influenza A and B subtypes tested in the trial.
Why This Matters
Current influenza vaccines must be reformulated annually because they target the virus's haemagglutinin and neuraminidase surface proteins, which mutate rapidly. The World Health Organisation convenes twice yearly to predict which strains will circulate in the coming season — a process that occasionally mispredicts the dominant strain, reducing vaccine effectiveness.
"This vaccine effectively makes that prediction problem irrelevant," said lead researcher Professor Amara Diallo. "Because we are targeting a conserved internal structure, the virus cannot mutate away from the vaccine without losing its ability to function as a virus."
Regulatory Timeline
BioNTech said it plans to submit data to the EMA and FDA in the third quarter of this year, with commercial availability targeted for 2027. The company said it would apply for emergency use authorisation if a novel pandemic strain emerged before that date.