Three months after being given the updated Covid booster from Moderna, the Omicron variant produces a stronger immune response than the original vaccine.
According to the findings, the booster should provide important protection against Covid in the months leading up to the winter season.
The Moderna vaccine and a similar shot from Pfizer are central to the autumn booster programme, which is offering the jabs to all over 50s and others most at risk from Covid.
The first Omicron variant, BA.1, was behind the UK's vast wave of Covid infections last winter, and Moderna's bivalent booster shotprimes the immune system to defend against it.
According to the firm, when given as a fourth booster shot, the bivalent vaccine produced higher levels of antibodies against BA.1 than their original vaccine, regardless of previous Covid infections. The higher response held for at least three months.
Full details of the results are expected to be presented at the IDWeek conference on Thursday. Moderna has shown that the bivalent booster is more effective than Moderna's original shot at getting the immune system to fight the Omicron variant.
It's not clear how well the boosters will work against new versions of Omicron that may cause a new wave of infections. The majority of Omicron in the UK is the BA.5 variant, but health officials are concerned about descendants of Omicron, which are better able to evade immunity built up from vaccinations.
Prof Danny Altmann, an immunologist at Imperial College London, said boosters targeting the BA.1 Omicron variant appeared to be holding up well against the BA.5 variant, but that more detail was needed to understand how long that protection would last.
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The data on protection from BA.5 reinfections and severity is much better than we had thought. The benefits of BA.1 boosters are clear. The devil is in the details.
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