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Currently, the vaccine is approved to be stored in a refrigerator between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit for up to 30 days and up to seven months at minus 4 Fahrenheit.
However, new data from Moderna found that it could support a three-month refrigerated shelf life that could “facilitate easier distribution to doctor’s offices and other smaller settings” if authorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The pharmaceutical company said that it is also working on new formulas that could further extend the vaccines’ shelf life further.
Similarly, Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine doses can be stored in a refrigerator for up to three months, though the vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech can only stay viable for up to five days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
On the same day the company announced the increased refrigerator shelf life, the company also announced that it plans to increase its COVID-19 vaccine production target from 700 million to between 800 million and one billion in the US by the end of 2021.
The company also plans to increase its global capacity to up to three billion for 2022.
“As we follow the rapid spread of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, we believe that there will continue to be a significant need for our mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and our variant booster candidates into 2022 and 2023,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said.
“We are hearing from governments that there is no technology that provides the high efficacy of mRNA vaccines and the speed necessary to adapt to variants, while allowing reliable scalability of manufacturing.”
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