Daily Management Review

BioNTech head: We can create a vaccine against the new COVID-19 strain in six weeks


12/23/2020


CEO of BioNTech, the biotech company that created the US and EU-approved COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer, said his company could create an improved version of the vaccine against the new COVID-19 strain found in the UK and several other countries fairly quickly.



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He noted that the RNA matrix technology used to create the current vaccine makes it possible to "start making a vaccine that completely mimics the new mutation immediately, we can start producing such a vaccine in six weeks."

The head of BioNTech believes that the current vaccine is likely to be effective against the new strain of coronavirus. 

At that, he added that his company needs about two weeks to complete the laboratory work, which should clearly demonstrate how effective the current vaccine is against the new strain.

Pfizer and BioNTech plan to produce 45 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine this year, including 12.5 million doses for the EU and 20 million doses for the US. By the end of next year, it is planned to produce up to 1.3 billion doses.

source: ft.com