University of Michigan public health expert Arnold Monto chairs panel

The Federal Drug Administration’s advisory committee, which evaluates and recommends vaccine formulas with the greatest likelihood of fighting future viruses, meets tomorrow to recommend COVID-19 vaccines for 2024-25 respiratory virus season.

Arnold Monto, professor emeritus of epidemiology and global public health at U-M’s School of Public Health and co-director of the Michigan Center for Respiratory Virus Research and Response, is acting chair of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

Among the committee’s discussion points will be whether to 1) recommend a vaccine formula that targets the JN.1 variant, which previously was the predominant cause of COVID-19 infection worldwide, or 2) recommend a new booster formula that combats JN.1’s emerging subvariant, KP.2, which became the the predominant source of infection in the U.S. in last month.

JN.1 is also the strain that World Health Organization advisers in April recommended as next season’s vaccine formula target.

Monto is available for comment following the meeting, which is scheduled at 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 5. It is open to the public via livestream. To reach Monto, contact Kim North Shine, [email protected].

The advisory committee’s recommendations are nonbinding for the FDA, which generally follows the recommendations but is not bound to do so, according to the FDA.