Recently approved in the EU, US, Australia, and Canada, 4CMenB (Bexsero(®), GSK 
Vaccines) is a multi-component meningococcal B (MenB) vaccine containing 3 
surface exposed recombinant proteins (fHbp, NadA, and NHBA) and New Zealand 
strain outer membrane vesicles (NZ OMV) containing PorA 1.4. The accepted 
correlate of protection to assess response to MenB vaccines, the serum 
bactericidal assay with human complement, is impractical for large panels of 
strains with diverse antigenic profile and expression. Therefore, the 
Meningococcal Antigen Typing System (MATS) was developed to identify MenB 
strains with a high likelihood of being covered by 4CMenB. MATS is used to 
assess MenB strain coverage without requiring sera, an advantage for testing 
large panels of bacterial isolates. MATS provides an accurate, conservative 
estimate of 4CMenB coverage. In a public-private partnership, 10 reference 
laboratories around the world were established and standardized to facilitate 
the timely collection and analysis of regional data. MATS has global public 
health implications for informing local policy makers of the predicted effect of 
the implementation of the 4CMenB vaccine. Coverage estimates are similar to or 
better than other recently approved vaccines, ranging from 66% to 91%. The use 
of MATS in post-vaccine implementation surveillance could provide data regarding 
vaccine effectiveness in the field and duration of protection on a global scale 
that will aid in the development of vaccine booster schedules, if necessary. 
This MATS approach could potentially be applied rapidly to assess epidemiology 
of other bacterial pathogens and coverage by other protein-based vaccines.