Moderna hopes to deliver COVID vaccines to Germany faster - report

[June 24, 2021]  BERLIN (Reuters) - Drugmaker Moderna Inc hopes to be able to deliver the COVID-19 vaccines it has promised to Germany faster than originally planned, Dan Staner, its European head, was quoted as telling the WirtschaftsWoche weekly on Thursday.

"Moderna hopes to provide the doses planned for Germany in the third quarter earlier to support the fastest possible progress on vaccinations," Staner said.

He confirmed that Moderna would definitely be able to deliver around 80 million doses in total for 2021, as expected by the German health ministry.

He hopes the Moderna vaccine will soon be given by German family doctors as well as at vaccination centres. Moderna is also planning to offer booster shots in the autumn for those who got their first vaccination in January or February.

"Our booster vaccine against the Beta variant is currently showing the strongest effect. We expect our multivalent booster vaccine to also protect against the original virus and the variants of concern," Staner said.

Moderna is currently in talks with Germany about setting up production capacity for its mRNA vaccines in the country as well as in other European locations, he added.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Mark Potter)

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