Last checked at 
LONDON, Feb 2 (Reuters) - Britain is talking to
pharmaceutical firms to ensure it is at the front of the queue
to receive COVID-19 vaccines that have been modified to deal
with new variants of the virus, should that become necessary,
the health minister said on Tuesday.
"We have confidence that modifications to vaccines, should
they be necessary in large scale, will be available more quickly
than the original vaccines," Matt Hancock said in parliament.
"And just as we did first time round, when we got in there
early and we bought at risk, so we are having exactly the same
conversations right now with the pharmaceutical companies to
make sure that we are right at the front of this one."
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge, Kate Holton and Paul Sandle,
writing by Estelle Shirbon; editing by Alistair Smout)
