Daiichi Sankyo said on Friday it submitted its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine for regulatory approval in Japan.
An approval would give Japan a homegrown mRNA vaccine — a vaccine type that has played a dominant role in the country's COVID-19 inoculation drive to this point. The vaccine known as DS-5670 is being proposed as a booster shot, Daiichi Sankyo said in a statement.
In a trial of about 5,000 Japanese adults, those who received the vaccine developed levels of COVID antibodies that were as good as or better than those of people who got other mRNA shots, the company said in November.
Daiichi Sankyo said it plans to move forward to develop DS-5670 to target the omicron strain of the coronavirus.
Japan has relied mainly on imports of shots developed by U.S. drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna.