- At a Davos virtual economic forum, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said there is a “high probability” that COVID-19 vaccines will become ineffective in the future.
- Bourla said the company is working to ensure it can produce a highly effective vaccine in 100 days or less, a radically accelerated development schedule.
- Former BARDA director Richard Hatchett also emphasized the need for governments to view infectious diseases as an “existential threat to our society”.
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Speaking at the virtual World Economic Forum in Davos in 2021, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he believes there is a “great possibility” that vaccines will not be effective in the future, although it has not yet happened.
“It is very likely that this will happen one day,” said Bourla.
Bourla said Pfizer is working to accelerate vaccine research and development if it does. Bourla wants to reduce the time it takes to recognize an infectious disease threat on a pandemic scale to get an authorized vaccine to 100 days or less – an even shorter schedule than last year’s 300-day goal set by Operation Warp Speed from Trump administration. The company plans to maintain the 95% effectiveness of the candidate vaccine, he said, in the face of evolving variants.
We are beginning to understand how variants can impact vaccines
In the past 24 hours, Johnson & Johnson and Novavax released efficacy results for their candidate vaccines COVID-19.
Although the initial prospect for Johnson & Johnson’s single dose looks promising, its overall effectiveness fluctuates by only 66%, with even less effectiveness against South Africa’s variant B.1.351. The United States-based Novavax vaccine has shown effectiveness 89% in tests in the UK, where another more contagious variant has evolved, but has dropped to less than 50% in its small test in South Africa.
By comparison, the Pfizer vaccine, produced in conjunction with BioNTech, has not been tested against any of the real-life variants of COVID-19. However, the company released results on Wednesday showing that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine worked against laboratory-made “pseudoviruses” designed to have the same mutations as the UK and South Africa variants.
Read More: Pfizer says its vaccine works against major coronavirus mutations found in South African and UK variants
Bourla was one of four speakers on a panel that discussed the need for collaboration between companies and governments to present the global pandemic and combat future threats to human health.
Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness and Innovation, who also spoke on the panel, emphasized the need to be prepared for future recurrences.
Referring to the less than 60% effectiveness of both Johnson & Johnson and Novavax against the new South African variant of the coronavirus, Hatchett said the world’s only hope of overcoming the virus is to control its global circulation.
“Governments must recognize emerging infectious diseases and the strands of the pandemic are an existential threat to our society,” said Hatchett, former director of BARDA. “They are an emerging property in the way we live.”
If we want society at large to continue as before COVID-19, Hatchett said that governments should make sustained long-term investments in preparation for future pandemics.
In final comments, he said the world should turn its attention to other coronaviruses and other viral families that could evolve to higher death rates than SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.