The EU drug regulator could approve Covid-19 vaccines that have been adapted to target the new variant within three to four months if needed, the agency's chief said on Tuesday as she said existing shots would continue to provide protection.
Speaking to the European Parliament, European Medicines Agency (EMA) executive director Emer Cooke said it was not known if drugmakers would need to tweak their vaccines to protect against Omicron, but the agency was preparing for that possibility.
"Even if the new variant becomes more widespread, the vaccines we have will continue to provide protection," she said.
Her comments came as drugmaker Moderna's chief executive set off fresh alarm bells in financial markets on Tuesday after he warned that vaccines were unlikely to be as effective against the variant first detected in southern Africa as they have been against the Delta version.
"There is no world, I think, where [the effectiveness] is the same level ... we had with Delta," Moderna chief Bancel told the Financial Times in an interview.
"I think it's going to be a material drop. I just don't know how much because we need to wait for the data. But all the scientists I've talked to ... are like 'this is not going to be good'," Bancel said.
Omicron – which the World Health Organization (WHO) said carries a "very high" risk of infection surges – has triggered global alarm, with border closures casting a shadow over a nascent economic recovery from a two-year pandemic.
News of its emergence wiped roughly $2 trillion off the value of global stocks on Friday, although some calm was restored this week as investors waited for more data on the characteristics of Omicron.
Remarks by US president Joe Biden that the United States would not reinstate lockdowns had also helped soothe markets before comments from the Moderna chief spooked investors.
