German pharmaceutical company BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer have submitted an application to the European Medicines Agency (EMA) for the authorization of their latest vaccine against COVID-19, designed to combat the current variants of Omicron BA.4 and BA.5. Representatives of the two companies announced on Friday, DPA reports, Agerpres reports.

Half of the new vaccine contains the same material as the previous vaccine developed by the Pfizer-BioNTech alliance. The other half consists of serum messenger RNA that specifically targets the BA.4 and BA.5 subtypes of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus.

Preclinical data suggest that this updated vaccine provides a “good neutralizing antibody response” against these two subtypes, as well as other subtypes of the Omicron variant.

The authorization application also includes information on the quality and manufacturing process of the vaccine and is based in part on data from a study related to the vaccine developed against the original Omicron variant, BA.1, for which the Pfizer-BioNTech alliance has already applied for authorization at the EMA in July.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) recently announced that a decision on the applications submitted by both Pfizer-BioNTech and the US company Moderna for the authorization of vaccines developed against the BA.1 subvariant will be made on 1 September.

The EMA is already in the process of testing a vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech against the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants.