Sir John Bell, a professor at Oxford University in the UK, told CNBC on Wednesday that he was confident that Covid-19 vaccines could be reorganized to provide effective protection against future coronavirus mutations.
Bell’s comments on “Closing Bell” come as global attention is focused on a virus strain that is widespread in the UK, which can spread more easily than previous versions. It has since been detected in Colorado and California.
“It’s going to be a cat and mouse game now,” said Bell, who helped oversee the development of the Oxford vaccine in partnership with AstraZeneca. The British government granted this authorization for the emergency use of the vaccine on Wednesday, after issuing a limited authorization for the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine earlier this month.
Studies are underway to officially determine whether the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine protects against the new strain of the virus, Bell said. “We think we can probably do it, but we just want to be absolutely sure.”
“Given the level of disease in the UK with the new variant … we will have a lot of examples of people who have had the vaccine who are exposed to the virus and we will be able to tell pretty quickly if the vaccine is really protective against this strains, “Bell added.
In addition to the coronavirus variant found in the UK, a separate strain first found in South Africa came to attention. Officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday they could also travel to America.
Bell told CNBC that he believes the variant discovered in South Africa has mutations that make it “a little more worrying” than the predominant strain in the UK. However, Bell expressed confidence in how scientists will cope with any viral mutation that avoids the protection offered by existing vaccines.
“If we have to make new vaccines, we can make them now that we’ve done the original job. I’m sure our friends with RNA vaccines can do the same,” Bell said. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been developed using RNA messenger technology, a new approach that uses genetic material to elicit an immune response. The Oxford-AstraZeneca viral virus vaccine uses a weakened version of a common cold virus that causes infections in chimpanzees.
“We are ready if we need to make another vaccine to address it,” Bell added. He also mentioned that the development process for updating vaccines will probably not require the same large-scale clinical trials conducted this year, but only immunogenicity studies to ensure that it elicits an immune response.
It is not uncommon for viruses to move, according to Dr. Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who serves on Pfizer’s board of directors. “Some viruses like the flu develop their surface proteins very quickly, so we need a different flu vaccine every season,” he told CNBC earlier this month.
Gottlieb then said he also believes existing vaccines will protect against the virus strain transmitted in the UK because of the way vaccines target the entire coronavirus spike protein.
“We develop antibodies against many different regions of this protein, so even if part of that protein were mutated and some antibodies no longer recognize it, there would be antibodies against other parts of that protein,” he said. “So this probably won’t go over our vaccines very easily, but eventually we’ll have to update the vaccines.”
Disclosure: Scott Gottlieb is a CNBC contributor and a member of the boards of Pfizer, the Tempus genetic testing start-up and the biotechnology company Illumina. Gottlieb is also co-chair of Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and Royal Caribbean’s Healthy Sail Panel.