ZURICH / FRANKFURT (Reuters) – At least four drug manufacturers expect their COVID-19 vaccines to be effective against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus raging in Britain and are conducting tests that should provide confirmation within weeks.
Ugur Sahin, CEO of Germany’s BioNTech, which took less than a year with partner Pfizer Inc to get a vaccine approved, said on Tuesday that he expects the messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine to still work well.
Moderna Inc, German CureVac and British drug company AstraZeneca Plc also believe their shots will work against the new threat that has spread chaos in Britain, sparking a wave of travel bans disrupting trade with Europe and the island country. further threaten to isolate.
“Scientifically, it is very likely that the immune response provided by this vaccine can also target this virus variant,” he said during a call to reporters.
Sahin said it will take about two more weeks of study and data collection to get a definitive answer.
“The vaccine contains more than 1,270 amino acids, and only nine have been changed (in the mutated virus). That means that 99% of the protein is still the same. “
The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage can be up to 70% more contagious and more of a problem for children.
In the event that the variant presents vaccine developers with an unexpected challenge, an advantage of mRNA is that scientists can quickly restructure genetic material in the uptake to match that of the mutated protein, while modifying traditional vaccines would require additional steps.
“In principle, the great thing about mRNA technology is that we can immediately start developing a vaccine that fully mimics this new mutation,” said Sahin.
“Technically we can deliver a new vaccine within six weeks. This is of course not just a technical question. We’re dealing with how regulators … would see that. “
Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and CureVac have all developed mRNA vaccines, while AstraZeneca has a more traditional vaccine that uses an adenovirus found in chimpanzees to deliver coronavirus genetic material to trigger an immune response.
Germany’s CureVac started late-stage clinical trials of its vaccine candidate last week and is constantly reviewing variants, which the company said are common as viruses spread.
Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said on Saturday that vaccines appeared to be enough to generate an immune response to the variant of the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday it will convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter the mutation.
Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Rama Venkat and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru and Patricia Weiss in Frankfurt; Adaptation by Kirsten Donovan and Lisa Shumaker