The Food and Drug Administration has authorized Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine as a booster shot for adults, the agency announced Wednesday.
The FDA originally greenlit Novavax, Adjuvanted for use as an initial COVID-19 vaccine series in July. With an aim to encourage more Americans to update their shots as vaccine protection wanes, the new authorization allows clinicians to also offer the vaccine as a first booster dose to patients aged 18 years and older.
The Novavax vaccine is meant to be used when the recently updated mRNA bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine is not clinically appropriate or accessible. It’s also available for those who would otherwise choose not to receive a booster dose, the FDA stated in a new fact sheet.
Unlike other available COVID-19 vaccines, Novavax, Adjuvanted is made using an older protein-based technology used in some non-COVID vaccines, such as those for influenza. At the time of its approval, there was hope that the drug’s use of an established technology would help to encourage vaccination in those who are wary of the newer methods used to make the COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson.
The public and providers have not yet embraced the vaccine as hoped, however. Novavax has not met expected sales goals, and “has halved its full-year revenue forecast, saying it does not expect further sales of the shot in the United States this year,” Reuters reported.
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