The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel is set to vote on Thursday on whether COVID-19 vaccines for the 2026-2027 campaign should target the dominant XFG variant. The meeting follows concerns from FDA staff about limited data on currently circulating strains.
The FDA's Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee will convene with its membership unchanged by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., indicating procedural normalcy. This comes after vaccine policy shake-ups under the health secretary and a court stay on CDC advisory panel decisions due to Kennedy's failure to properly appoint that panel.
In briefing documents, the FDA noted that assessing COVID-19 evolution has become more difficult due to a decline in virologic surveillance, reduced sequencing volumes, and lack of timely data sharing from state and local health departments. The CDC's COVID dashboard reflects this gap, with weekly data unavailable due to insufficient sequencing submissions.
The most recent update, over a month old, showed XFG strains accounted for more than half of U.S. cases in the four weeks ending April 11. Jill Roberts, associate professor at the University of South Florida, attributed the sequencing reduction to loss of government surveillance staff and diminished academic funding.
For the 2025-26 season, the FDA had recommended targeting LP.8.1, a JN.1 subvariant. While variants still derive primarily from JN.1, other subvariants like NB.1.8.1 have emerged since May last year. Currently, four COVID shots are approved in the U.S.: Moderna's mNEXSPIKE and Spikevax, Pfizer-BioNTech's Comirnaty, and Novavax-Sanofi's protein-based shot.
