On Mar. 16, 2021, Moderna announced that the first participants had been dosed in the Phase 2/3 study, called the KidCOVE study, of mRNA-1273, the Company’s vaccine candidate against COVID-19, in children ages 6 months to less than 12 years.

The NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and HHS’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) are collaborating on the study, which marked the first time that a COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the U.S. is being tried out on very young children.

“It is humbling to know that 53 million doses have been administered to people in the U.S. We are encouraged by the primary analysis of the Phase 3 COVE study of mRNA-1273 in adults ages 18 and above and this pediatric study will help us assess the potential safety and immunogenicity of our COVID-19 vaccine candidate in this important younger age population,” Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said in a news release. The study was expected to include 6,750 pediatric participants in the U.S. and Canada.