Covid Vaccine 'Highly Likely' To Work On UK Variant, Can Adapt It In 6 Weeks To Tackle New Strain If Needed: BioNTech CEO

The CEO of German pharmaceutical company BioNTech Ugur Sahin today said today (Dec 22) that he has "scientific confidence" that coronavirus vaccine developed by his company would also work on the variant detected in the UK.

Uğur Şahin told a press conference that his team had been working on trying to find out whether the vaccine worked on the UK variant or whether it would be necessary to adapt it. Results would be known within two weeks, he said.

Should the vaccine need to be adjusted for the new variant the company could do so in about six weeks, said Uğur Sahin, though regulators might have to approve the changes before the shots can be used.

"..In principle the beauty of the messenger technology is that we can directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics this new mutation – we could be able to provide a new vaccine technically within six weeks.” Uğur Sahin said

BioNTech’s vaccine, developed with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, has been authorised for use in more than 45 countries, including Britain and the US.

The vaccine received approval for use in the EU. BioNTech said deliveries would begin immediately.