BioNTech CEO says vaccine production needs to be accelerated

Photographer: Morry Gash / AFP / Getty Images

A year after Covid-19 was declared a pandemic, the world would be well advised to prepare for the next one.

This is the warning of Ugur Sahin, CEO of BioNTech SE, the researcher behind one of the first approved coronavirus vaccines. And while the virus still restricts much of daily life around the world, Sahin says Covid-19 is not even the worst outbreak imaginable. In fact, future pandemics could be devastating, and it’s important to be prepared, he said in an interview.

The goal should be that drug manufacturers and governments within three months of developing a shot have production capacity to immunize the entire world, Sahin said. Given the state of the current vaccine campaigns, with large sections of the world population still waiting for a shot, this is an ambitious target. To get there, Sahin envisions a public-private partnership, which compares the large expenses to the payment of insurance.

“We were not prepared to produce adequate doses for the entire population of this planet,” Sahin said of the current campaign. “It needs to change. We must not only be prepared to develop a vaccine quickly, but also produce adequate doses. ‘

Sahin’s warning tone comes amid a faltering vaccination campaign on BioNTech’s home field, with European Union officials grapple with AstraZeneca Plc on a slowdown in promised deliveries. BioNTech and its US partner Pfizer Inc. is expected to will send the bulk of the 400 million doses the EU is counting on to speed up its second-quarter vaccination campaign. But for now, only about 7% of Europeans have received at least one dose – compared to about 19% of people in the United States. Africa, meanwhile, has not even started.

Future uses

More than 334 million shots fired: Covid-19 Tracker

Vaccine makers as a whole will produce enough doses for the whole world next year, Sahin predicted in an interview with Bloomberg Television earlier this week. Pfizer and BioNTech can manufacture 3 billion shots in 2022, he said.

Sahin, 55, and his wife, co-founder of BioNTech, Ozlem Tureci, 54, have spent most of their careers pushing the boundaries of cancer research until the pandemic put them in the spotlight last year. The messenger RNA technology they used to help the pioneer – with Pfizer’s entry into the project in March last year – was one of the best and fastest ways to make a vaccine to fight the pandemic.

The On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared Covid a pandemic as the disease spread to Europe, the US and elsewhere. In the same month, countries in Europe, starting with Italy, imposed the first of a series of locks. The virus infected nearly 120 million people and killed more than 2.6 million people.

The Pfizer BioNTech vaccine was the first to be approved in the US and Europe and received emergency declaration in December. The pandemic changed BioNTech, which until last year did not sell any drugs, into a well-known name. Pfizer predicts This year, they received $ 15 billion in revenue from the Covid vaccine.

Partnerships