By the end of the year, 12.5 million doses would be ready
for the bloc, BioNTech chief executive Sean Marett announced on Tuesday.
The vaccination doses are currently stored in the plant of
BioNTech’s U.S. partner Pfizer in Puurs, Belgium.
This is where the raw materials, which are manufactured in
BioNTech’s various production facilities, are processed and filled.
Every EU member state should receive their doses by Saturday
so that vaccinations could start on Sunday, BioNTech chief financial officer
Sierk Poeting said.
According to its own statements, the coronavirus vaccine
manufacturer Biontech will in principle be able to produce a preparation
against the mutation of the virus that appeared in Britain within six weeks.
“But that’s a purely technical consideration,” BioNTech boss
Ugur Sahin said on Tuesday.
He said it was not just about technical issues, but also
about how the regulatory authorities would rate the preparation.
He added that it was very likely that the vaccine that had
already been produced would also work against the new variant.
The platform of the previous vaccine would not be affected
in the event of any further development, medical director and BioNTech
co-founder Ozlem Tureci explained.
In this case, the question would be to what extent the
authorities accepted the safety and efficacy data already submitted for the
current vaccine as a basis.
This in turn would influence the duration of a possible
approval process.
According to the German disease control authority the Robert
Koch Institute (RKI), the new strain of the coronavirus has already reached
Germany from Britain.
“The probability that it is already in Germany, but not yet
recognized, is very, very high,” RKI President Lothar Wieler said on Tuesday in
Berlin.
He pointed out that the new strain was detected for the
first time in Britain in September, and that there is already evidence that it
has apeared in neighbouring countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark.
However, Wieler said he did not know of any laboratory
evidence in Germany.
The new variant is apparently much more common in Britain
than other variants.
“That could be because it is more infectious, but it doesn’t
have to be the case,” Wieler said.
“We cannot yet clearly assess the significance of the
variant for what is happening,” he added.
Regarding the importance of the variant for the upcoming
vaccinations, Wieler said: “All of these data that we know so far suggest that
the protection provided by vaccination is not restricted if this variant
spreads further.”
Wieler is hoping for more information on the new variant
this year.
dpa/NAN