BioNTech has 'scientific confidence' vaccine will work on UK COVID-19 variant, says CEO

BERLIN: The chief executive of BioNTech says the German pharmaceutical company is confident that its coronavirus vaccine works against the United Kingdom variant, but further studies are need to be completely sure.

Ugur Sahin said on Tuesday (Dec 22) that “we don’t know at the moment if our vaccine is also able to provide protection against this new variant”, but because the proteins on the variant are 99 per cent the same as the prevailing strains, BioNTech has “scientific confidence” in the vaccine.

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Sahin said BioNTech is currently conducting further studies and hopes to have certainty within the coming weeks.

“The likelihood that our vaccine works ... is relatively high,” he said.

BioNTech’s vaccine, developed together with American pharmaceutical company Pfizer, is authorised for use in more than 45 countries including Singapore, the European Union, the UK and the United States.

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