VACCINE FOR NEW COVID-19 VARIANT COULD BE READY IN 6 WEEKS: BIONTECH’S CEO UGUR SAHIN

Tue 22 December 2020:

German pharmaceutical company BioNTech says it’s still unclear whether the current vaccine will be able to provide protection against the new UK variant of COVID-19, but “scientifically, it is highly likely that the immune response by this vaccine also can deal with the new virus variants.”

Sahin said the BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine was effective against the recently discovered variants of the novel coronavirus, but added that if it becomes necessary to develop a new one, this could be possible in less than two months.

“In principle, the beauty of the messenger RNA technology is that we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation. And we could be able to provide a new vaccine, technically within six weeks,” he said.

But he also underlined that due to the other aspects of vaccine production, such as necessary authorizations by the health authorities, the process may also take longer.

“Of course this is not only a technical question, we have to deal with the question, how regulators, how EMA [European Medicine Agency], FDA [Food and Drug Administration], and other authorities would see that,” he said.

Sahin said that the proteins on the UK variant are 99% the same as on the prevailing strains, and therefore BioNTech has “scientific confidence” that its vaccine will be effective.

The variant detected mainly in London and the southeast of England in recent weeks has sparked concern worldwide because of signs that it may spread more easily.

While there is no indication it causes more serious illness, numerous countries in Europe and beyond have restricted travel from the UK as a result.

The US and UK have already started using the BioNTech and Pfizer’s vaccine, after health regulators approved its emergency use in these countries.

The EMA announced on Monday that it gave conditional market authorization for the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine to be used in the European Union.