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* Says UK can test shots against variants quickly
* Says cancelled UK Valneva contact was for variants
LONDON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - Kate Bingham, the former head of
the UK's COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce who secured millions of
doses for the country, said scientists should know within a week
whether existing shots are effective against the Omicron variant
of the coronavirus.
Bingham, a venture capitalist who backed multiple vaccines
at the start of the pandemic to secure early access for Britain,
said she currently expected that the leading shots would still
show efficacy.
"The question is do they have the same level of efficacy?"
she said in an interview at the Reuters Next conference on
Wednesday.
Bingham, who has returned to her role as managing partner at
SV Health Investors, said Britain had built up the capability to
quickly test existing vaccines against new variants.
"It's not something you can do overnight, but we will get
data, I would have thought within a week as to whether or not
the vaccines work or don't," she said.
Under Bingham's leadership, the UK taskforce ordered
vaccines as they were still being trialled, securing supplies
from Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Moderna and
others to give Britain a head start in the rollout.
She said on Wednesday that she had backed the vaccine from
French company Valneva, which differs from others by
relying on an inactivated virus similar to flu vaccines, because
having a varied portfolio would be useful when variants emerged.
Britain has since cancelled the order.
"The idea of having that as a potential vaccine in our
portfolio, knowing it was going to come on stream later than the
earlier ones, was precisely that you could deal with variants,"
she said.
She added that "unfortunately" the Valneva contract had
been cancelled. "I wasn't part of the decision so I don't know
the basis of it," she said. "But I would have thought that was a
useful vaccine to have in our panoply of tools to actually
address variants and future pandemic strains."
To watch the Reuters?Next conference please register here https://reutersevents.com/events/next/
(Reporting by Aimee Donnellan; writing by Kate Holton; Editing
by Kirsten Donovan)
