Britain approves Novavax COVID vaccine for 12-17 year-olds

Britain’s medicines regulator on Friday approved Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine for children aged between 12 and 17 years.

The mRNA vaccines made by Moderna as well as the partnership between Pfizer-BioNTech are also cleared for use by this age group, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.

In the 12 through 17 year-old population, the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine has been granted authorization in the U.S., India, the European Union, Australia, Japan, Thailand, and New Zealand, and is actively under review in other markets.

The MHRA previously granted CMA for Nuvaxovid in adults aged 18 and older in February 2022. The vaccine is given as a primary vaccination in two doses administered 21 days apart. Novavax filed for expanded CMA for use as a booster in adults aged 18 and over in June 2022.

The expanded CMA was based on data from the ongoing pediatric expansion of the Phase 3 PREVENT-19 trial of 2,247 adolescents aged 12 through 17 years across 73 sites in the U.S., to evaluate the safety, effectiveness (immunogenicity), and efficacy of Nuvaxovid. In the pediatric expansion, Nuvaxovid achieved its primary effectiveness endpoint and demonstrated 80% clinical efficacy overall at a time when the Delta variant was the predominant circulating SARS-CoV-2 strain in the U.S.

Preliminary safety data from the pediatric expansion showed the vaccine to be generally well-tolerated. Serious and severe adverse events were low in number and balanced between vaccine and placebo groups, and not considered related to the vaccine. Local and systemic reactogenicity was generally lower than or similar to adults, after the first and second dose. The most common adverse reactions observed were injection site tenderness/pain, headache, myalgia, fatigue, and malaise. There was no increase in reactogenicity in younger (12 to <15 years old) adolescents compared to older (15 to <18 years old) adolescents. No new safety signal was observed through the placebo-controlled portion of the pediatric expansion.