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VACCINE CREATOR: Ugur Sahin from BioNTech. Photo: FABIAN BIMMER / X02840
Next winter will be normal, says Ugur Sahin at BioNTech, which is developing one of the main candidate vaccines against the coronavirus. He warns that difficult months await us.
– This winter will be difficult. We will not have a big impact on infection rates with the vaccine this winter, says Ugur Sahin in an interview with the BBC.
If all goes well, he hopes they can deliver a finished vaccine by the end of the year or early next. The goal is to deliver more than 300 million doses of the vaccine by April.
– We will see the biggest impact in the summer. So the infection rate decreases anyway.
– But it is absolutely essential that we vaccinate a high proportion of the population by next fall. Therefore, vaccination must take place by then. I am sure it will happen, as there are many companies that help us with the supply, he continues.
– Then we can have a normal winter next year.
90 percent effective
Analyzes from pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which funds attempts by Sahin and his company to produce a vaccine, were released Monday.
These analyzes showed that the vaccine provides a 90 percent protection rate, meaning that 9 out of 10 who get vaccinated will be protected against the virus.
– I mean this is a historic moment, said Pfizer’s director of vaccine research and development.
The vaccine is being evaluated in the EU and is one of the vaccines that Norway has access to through vaccine collaborations. The EU is negotiating the purchase of 300 million doses of the vaccine, for use in the union and in Norway.
Even with the good news about the vaccine, it is still uncertain when it will arrive in Norway and how quickly the first groups can be vaccinated.
The BioNTech vaccine will require storage at minus 70 degrees. Therefore, preparing for the deployment of these vaccines is more demanding, as there are few freezers capable of such cold temperatures.
However, Norwegian municipalities have been told to be ready to start vaccination from December 1, although the vaccine will not be here by then.
New technology
Ugur Sahin and his wife Özlem Türeci co-founded the biotechnology company BioNTech in 2008. The company is valued at NOK 189 billion, after news broke of the advancement of the company’s vaccine.
The vaccine is being developed in collaboration between German BioNTech, American Pfizer, and Chinese Fosum Pharma.
MARRIED: Ugur Sahin and Özlem Türeci founded the BioNTech company in 2008. They are the CEO and the medical director of the company, respectively. Photo: BIONTECH
They use so-called RNA technology to find a vaccine. The technology that is based on the DNA of the virus, with the objective that the body produces the proteins of the vaccine by itself.
Initially, BioNTech worked on the development of a general cancer vaccineBut when Sahin came across a scientific paper in January about the novel coronavirus outbreak in the Chinese city of Wuhan, this changed.
According to Reuters, the professor realized that it would be a short path from the development of mRNA-based cancer drugs to the development of an mRNA-based coronavirus vaccine.
