Pfizer said Tuesday it is “laying the groundwork” to create a vaccine booster that could respond to coronavirus variants.
“We shouldn’t be afraid, but I think we should be prepared,” Albert Bourla, Pfizer CEO, said at Bloomberg’s The Year Ahead event Tuesday. “As soon as we discover something that is not as effective, we will very, very quickly produce a booster dose that will be a slight variation from the current one.”
Bourla said the company had discussed variants in the past and developed a process to adapt it quickly.
“We were working on a process that will allow us to do the development very quickly,” said Bourla. “Now we have already started to implement this process.”
In a statement to CNN on Tuesday, Pfizer stressed that the process is to respond, “if a variant of SARS-CoV-2 shows evidence of escaping immunity through our vaccine.”
However, the studies required to evaluate a vaccine encoding an updated viral antigen have yet to be determined, in consultation with regulators. We will need to generate data that provides confidence that any updated vaccine is safe and effective. The updated vaccine to be administered as a booster would be subject to regulatory approval or authorization, ”the statement said.
Last week, Ugur Sahin, who helped invent the BioNTech vaccine made and distributed by Pfizer, tested his vaccine against the B.1.1.7 variant first seen in the UK. The team found “no biologically significant difference in neutralization activity,” they reported in a preprinted report. But they said it would be “wise” to modify the vaccine just in case.
Vaccine maker Moderna announced Monday that two doses of its vaccine are expected to be protective against emerging strains of coronavirus detected so far, but out of an abundance of caution, it planned to test booster shots.