Jan. 31 (UPI) -- Novavax asked the Food and Drug Administration on Monday to grant an emergency use authorization for its protein-based COVID-19 vaccine.
The vaccine uses technology similar to the flu vaccine by introducing synthesized coronavirus proteins into the body, unlike mRNA vaccines such as the Pfizer and Moderna shots. The FDA gave full approval Monday to Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine, which will be marketed as Spikevax, for adults.
The Novavax vaccine, which consists of two doses given 21 days apart, is currently used worldwide after being granted conditional authorization by the European Commission and the World Health Organization. If granted by the FDA, it would be the first protein-based COVID-19 vaccine to receive emergency use authorization in the United States.
"We're extremely proud of the work of our teams and we look forward to FDA's review of our EUA request," Novavax CEO Stanley Erck said in a statement. "We believe our vaccine offers a differentiated option built on a well-understood protein-based vaccine platform that can be an alternative to the portfolio of available vaccines to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic."
In December, the European Medicines Agency had recommended approval for adults over age 18, citing recent trials conducted in Mexico, the United States and Britain.
The Mexico-U.S. study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed the vaccine had a 90.4% efficacy in reducing symptomatic COVID-19 cases. The British study, also published in the journal, showed an efficacy of 89.7%.
The EMA noted Monday that both studies were done when only the Alpha and Beta coronavirus variants were dominant and that there's limited data for how Novavax's vaccine behaves against the more transmissible Delta and Omicron variants.
The Novavax vaccine was the fifth vaccine to receive EMA authorization and the ninth to be approved by the WHO.
Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that 211.7 million people in the United States are already considered fully vaccinated and 87.8 million have received a booster shot as infection rates ease nationally after the winter surge of the Omicron variant.
However, health experts hope that the approval of the protein-based vaccine will lead to the vaccination of those who have been resistant to getting the mRNA shots.
"[People] may be more accepting of this type of vaccine because it doesn't have components of messenger RNA," Dr. Chris Ohl, an infectious disease expert at Wake Forest Baptist, told NBC News. "It's a hypothesis that should be tested, but it's really going to require the company and public health officials to make sure people understand the differences between the vaccines."
