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The German pharmaceutical BioNTech is looking for solutions together with its American partner Pfizer to increase the production of its vaccine against COVID-19, but warns that there could be syncope in supply until other vaccines are authorized, reports the Reuters agency, taken over by Agerpres.
Delays in the distribution of the vaccine have caused consternation in Germany, where several regions have been forced to suspend vaccination a few days after launch.
The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is currently the only COVID-19 vaccine authorized in the European Union, but its authorization relatively late by the specialized agency of the EU and the quantity of vaccine requested by the European Commission, which has concluded contracts with manufacturers of vaccines on behalf of Member States: leading to a slow pace of supply.
“Things are not looking good at the moment, there is a gap because there are no other approved vaccines and we have to fill the gap with our vaccine,” he explained. Mirror CEO of BioNTech, Ugur Sahin. He and his wife, Oezlem Tuereci, the company’s chief medical officer, founded the company, which partnered with the US pharmaceutical company Pfizer, to produce the COVID-19 vaccine.
The European Commission’s strategy, criticized by the head of BioNTech
BioNTech officials, on the other hand, criticize the European Commission’s decision to sign contracts with various pharmaceutical companies in the hope that their vaccines will be approved quickly, which has not happened. “Many other companies are supposed to come with the vaccine. Apparently this was the impression that we would have enough, that it would not be too bad and that we were in control. This surprised me,” Sahin said.
The United States ordered 600 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in July, while the European Commission waited until November to order half that amount. Of the 300 million doses ordered by the EU, only 200 million were a firm order, and the remaining 100 million doses were kept as an option, activated last week, but with a deadline still unclear, says Reuters. .
The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is expected to approve the vaccine produced by the American company Moderna on January 6. German Health Minister Jens Spahn asked this European institution to speed up the authorization of the vaccine produced by the British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, already approved in Great Britain and on Friday in India. But the EMA said it was “unlikely” to give such an opinion at the end of January.
Germany rejects outsourcing of BioNTech vaccine production
BioNTech expects to start up a new production line at the plant in the German city of Marburg in February, with a production capacity of 250 million doses in the first half of the year. German Health Minister Jens Spahn promised in a message on Twitter that he will do everything possible to get this unit to start its activity as soon as possible.
The Berlin government, which funded BioNTech with the € 375 million vaccine project, rejected calls to outsource production by handing over the production license to other pharmaceutical companies, citing, as representatives of BioNTech, the complexity of the manufacturing process of this vaccine based on the new messenger RNA technology.
“We are trying to find new partners for cooperation in production. But it is not as if disused factories are spreading around the world that could produce the vaccine to the quality standard overnight,” explained the CEO. BioNTech “By the end of January, it will be clear if we can produce more and in what quantity,” he added.
What happens to the vaccine if the virus undergoes a radical mutation?
Ugur Sahin also said that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which uses messenger RNA technology to train the human immune system to fight coronaviruses, should also work against the new strain of coronavirus discovered in the UK. “We are testing to see if our vaccine can neutralize this variant and will find out sooner,” he explained.
However, when asked what would happen in the event of a major mutation, the BioNTech director replied that in this case, it would take about six more weeks to tailor the vaccine, which could require new approval from regulators.
Editor: Luana Pavaluca
