Biontech boss Ugur Sahin is confident that his company’s corona vaccine will also work against the new mutation of the virus that has emerged in Great Britain. From a scientific point of view, the probability is high, he told the German Press Agency. “We have already tested the vaccine against approximately 20 other virus variants with other mutations. The immune response produced by our vaccine has always inactivated all forms of the virus.”

Tests take a few weeks The virus has mutated a little more now said Sahin. “We now have to test this experimentally. It will take about two weeks. But we are confident that the mechanism of action will not be significantly affected.”

According to Sahin, the antigen that the Mainz-based company and its US partner Pfizer use for the vaccine consists of over 1270 amino acids. Nine of them have now mutated, so not even one percent. “Our vaccine sees the whole protein and causes multiple immune responses. This gives us so many docking points that the virus is difficult to escape. But that does not mean that the new variant is harmless.” The Biontech vaccine based on the messenger molecule mRNA can in principle be quickly adapted to new variants.

According to Sahin, the comparatively long duration in the EU approval process had no effect on the amount of vaccine doses that the Mainz-based company received has pre-produced. “We had already planned a division of the vaccine doses in advance since November, and we are sticking to that. What has changed is of course the number that we can deliver this year. But overall, the number of doses that we can deliver to the EU will increase have promised not to change. ”

Historical approval process He called the EU approval for the Biontech vaccine, which took place on Monday, “historically by far the fastest drug approval”. Biontech not only had to answer the questions of the EU authorities, but also many questions from individual countries. “This made the process more exhausting, but it was just part of taking care of the procedures in the EU correctly step by step.”

Neither himself nor his wife, the Biontech co-founder and medical director Özlem Türeci, according to his words, have so far been vaccinated with the active ingredient of their company. “But we would like that as soon as we have an appropriate basis for it,” he said. “It is important to us that we provide our employees in production with the appropriate vaccine doses.” The aim is to guarantee the uninterrupted manufacture of vaccines in Biontech’s production network over the next twelve months. “We are therefore considering using a small batch for this purpose that is independent of the EU quota.”

Sahin indicated that Biontech, in addition to its plants in Mainz and Idar-Oberstein in Rhineland-Palatinate and is also soon considering further production facilities for the vaccine in Marburg, Hesse. “We are talking about a partnership to activate another production facility,” he said. There is also the well-known partnership with the pharmaceutical company Dermapharm, which also produces for Biontech. “We are now trying to find more partners. We are striving to make cans that were planned for the second half 2021 available in the first half.”

He called the conditional approval of the Biontech vaccine in the EU “great”. He added: “The fact that the EU is now giving us the opportunity to provide people with our Covid – 19 – vaccine makes us easier and happy . We have seen in many places the desire that people want a vaccine. ”

( mho)