The CEO of German pharmaceutical company BioNTech said he remains confident that the company’s Covid vaccine, developed in partnership with Pfizer, will be effective against the highly infectious variants of the virus discovered in the UK and South Africa.
“We are confident that, based on the mechanism of our vaccine, even if there are mutations, we believe that the immune response induced by our vaccine could also deal with (a) mutated viruses,” Dr. Ugur Sahin, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, said Meg Tirrell of CNBC on Monday.
“Last week, we reported another mutation that is present in the UK variant and also in the South Africa variant and that mutation is considered important because it can structurally alter the protein. But it appears that the immune response against our vaccine also neutralizes that mutation . “
His comments referred to research published on Thursday that showed that the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech appeared to be effective against a key mutation in the most infectious variants of the virus discovered in the UK and South Africa.
The study, conducted by the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and not yet peer-reviewed, suggests that the vaccine worked to neutralize the so-called N501Y mutation. This mutation has been reported in the coronavirus variants discovered in the United Kingdom and South Africa.
The variants, which originated separately, share a genetic mutation of the so-called spike protein, which the virus uses to enter cells in the body.
Doctors welcomed the study’s findings last week, but warned that it was important to note that the research focused only on the N501Y mutation found in both new variants.
Sahin of BioNTech said the company would be able to present more data looking at the full set of mutations in the coming days.
The new vaccine may be ready ‘within six weeks’
Like Moderna’s, the Covid vaccine from Pfizer-BioNTech uses messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology. In practice, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that this “teaches our cells to make a protein – or even just a piece of it – that triggers an immune response in our body”.
The resulting immune response produces antibodies that help protect people from being infected with the virus.
Ugur Sahin, co-founder and CEO of Biontech, is on the company’s premises. Biontech is a biotechnology company that researches, among other things, vaccines against coronavirus. (Photo by Andreas Arnold / Alliance image via Getty Images)
Andreas Arnold | image alliance via Getty Images
When asked how quickly BioNTech could spin if it discovered that the existing Covid vaccine was ineffective against new variants, Sahin said that “a key advantage” of mRNA technology is that it would allow the company to adapt the vaccine “relatively quickly. “
“We can change the vaccine sequence in a few days and, in principle, we could deliver a new vaccine in six weeks. This is technically possible and, if necessary, we will do it, ”he said, noting that it would also require discussions with regulatory authorities, such as the Food and Drug Administration.
“So we are confident that the technology with which it would allow us to be extremely quick to respond to a mutation or variant of a virus that comes with different problems,” said Sahin.
Public health experts have expressed concern that the new mutant strains may pose a threat to inoculation efforts. In recent weeks, optimism about the mass launch of Covid vaccines has been tempered by an increase in the spread rate of the virus worldwide.
To date, more than 90.3 million people have contracted the coronavirus worldwide, with 1.93 million deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.