Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech, sees a need for an updated Covid-19 vaccine by middle of next year as the virus further mutates.
BioNTech, together with Pfizer, developed what has been described as the first vaccine late last year.
“This year [a different vaccine] is completely unneeded. But by mid next year, it could be a different situation,” said Sahin in an interview with the Financial Times.
According to Sahin, the so-called Deltra strain of the virus is more contagious, but not different enough to undermine the effectiveness of current vaccines, and therefore, booster shoots of the current vaccine are still useful.
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However, the virus will eventually mutate and therefore a “tailored” version of the vaccine is needed to tackle the new strain.
“This virus will stay, and the virus will further adapt,” he said. “We have no reason to assume that the next generation virus will be easier to handle for the immune system than the existing generation. This is a continuous evolution, and that evolution has just started.”
According to the Financial Times, Sahin declined to offer any forecasts of how the BioNTech/Pfizer vaccine would be priced in the future.
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