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(Adds AstraZeneca saying its vaccine should be effective
against new variant)
By John Miller and Patricia Weiss
ZURICH/FRANKFURT, Dec 22 (Reuters) - At least four
drugmakers expect their COVID-19 vaccines will be effective
against the new fast-spreading variant of the virus that is
raging in Britain and are performing tests that should provide
confirmation in a few weeks.
Ugur Sahin, chief executive of Germany's BioNTech
, which with partner Pfizer Inc, took less
than a year to get a vaccine approved, said on Tuesday he
expects its messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine to still work well.
Moderna Inc, Germany's CureVac and British
drugmaker AstraZeneca Plc also believe their shots will
work against the new threat that has sown chaos in Britain,
prompting a wave of travel bans that are disrupting trade with
Europe and threatening to further isolate the island country.
"Scientifically it is highly likely that the immune response
by this vaccine can also deal with this virus variant," he said
on a call with reporters.
Sahin said it will take another two weeks or so of study and
data collection to get a definitive answer.
"The vaccine contains more than 1,270 amino acids, and only
nine of them are changed (in the mutated virus). That means that
99% of the protein is still the same."
The mutation known as the B.1.1.7 lineage may be up to 70%
more infectious and more of a concern for children.
In the event that the variant presents vaccine developers
with an unexpected challenge, an advantage of mRNA is that
scientists can quickly re-engineer genetic material in the shot
to match that of the mutated protein, whereas modifying
traditional vaccines would require extra steps.
"In principle, the beauty of the mRNA technology is we can
directly start to engineer a vaccine which completely mimics
this new mutation," Sahin said.
"We could be able to provide a new vaccine technically
within six weeks. Of course, this is not only a technical
question. We have to deal with how regulators... would see
that."
Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and CureVac all developed mRNA
vaccines, while AstraZeneca has a more traditional vaccine that
uses an adenovirus found in chimpanzees to deliver genetic
material from the coronavirus to spur an immune response.
Germany's CureVac started late-stage clinical trials on its
vaccine candidate last week and is constantly reviewing
variants, which the company said are common as viruses spread.
Britain's chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance said on
Saturday vaccines appeared to be adequate in generating an
immune response to the variant of the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday it will
convene a meeting of members to discuss strategies to counter
the mutation.
(Reporting by John Miller in Zurich, Rama Venkat and Kanishka
Singh in Bengaluru and Patricia Weiss in Frankfurt;
Editing by Kirsten Donovan and Lisa Shumaker)
