The couple behind BioNTech, the German company that made the COVID-19 vaccine with Pfizer, have revealed plans for another new shot of the virus, warning that COVID is nowhere near over.
According to the Boston Globe, Drs. Ugur Sahin and Dr. Ozlem Tureci made her remarks during a trip to Pfizer’s US headquarters in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Sahin told the newspaper: “This virus will be with us for many years and we are still in the pandemic phase of this outbreak.
“So all the predictions that the pandemic will do it [soon] are just not true.’
The couple founded BioNTech in 2008 and count the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among their major investors.
BioNTech sold $21 billion worth of vaccines in 2021 and is on track to shift another $20 billion worth of vaccines in 2022.
Her research has been credited as a driving force behind the first Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine collaboration – and the couple have now insisted that neither she nor the pandemic is over yet.
In total, the two are developing three new recordings with clinical trials to be conducted over the next six months.
dr Ugur Sahin and Dr. Ozlem Tureci founded BioNTech in 2008 and count the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation among their major investors
In total, BioNTech is developing three new injections with clinical trials to be conducted over the next six months
In September, the US and Europe approved the use of a new booster shot targeting the Omicron variant. The booster is made by Pfizer and BioNTech and their competitor Moderna.
BioNTech unveiled its latest shot weeks after President Joe Biden said on CBS News’ “60 Minutes” that “the pandemic is over.”
“We still have a problem with COVID. We’re still working hard on that. But the pandemic is over. When you notice nobody is wearing masks,” he said. “Everyone seems to be in pretty good shape and I think it’s changing.”
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus echoed this, saying the world has never been in a better position to end the COVID-19 pandemic, his most optimistic outlook yet on the years-long health crisis.
“We’re not there yet. But the end is in sight,” he said. Biden was promptly scolded by the CDC even though most Americans have moved away from COVID and are back to living as before.
President Joe Biden said the COVID-19 pandemic was “over” in an interview with CBS News.
In September, the US and Europe approved the use of a new booster shot targeting the Omicron variant
Pfizer said in July that the company’s vaccine, Comirnaty, brought in $8.85 billion in sales, and its drug Paxlovid added another $8.12 billion as the company’s combined $27.74 billion dollars.
Pfizer maintained its guidance for full-year Comirnaty sales of approximately $32 billion and Paxlovid sales of approximately $22 billion.
Comirnaty was by far the most popular of the four vaccines approved for use in the United States. More than 355 million doses of the two-shot vaccine have been administered, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Sahin told the Globe that one of the new vaccines will help the recipient’s antibodies attack the virus “more conspicuously”.
Husband and wife Ugur Sahin and Oezlem Tuereci are the couple behind the COVID-19 vaccine that changed the world
Pfizer’s US campus in the Osborn Triangle near Harvard University
Another, he said, would help stimulate a person’s T-cell response. The T cell is a part of the immune system that fights infections while they are still in the body.
The last, dubbed the company’s “most ambitious” by the Globe, aims to help a person’s immune system fight off strains of COVID-19 we’re not even aware of.
Tureci told The Globe: “We will continue to monitor any upcoming new variants. We have an AI [artificial intelligence] based early warning system, which we use to screen upcoming variants.’
Born in Turkey, Sahin grew up in Germany where his parents worked in a Ford factory. Trained as a doctor, Sahin became a professor and researcher specializing in immunotherapy.
He worked at teaching hospitals in Cologne and the southwestern city of Homburg, where he met the immunologist Tuereci during his early academic career. Medical research and oncology became a shared passion.
Tuereci, the daughter of a Turkish doctor who emigrated to Germany, once said in an interview that both of them made time for laboratory work on the day of their wedding.
Together they refined the immune system as a potential ally in the fight against cancer and attempted to study the unique genetic makeup of each tumor.
The couple founded BioNTech in 2008 with the aim of pursuing a much broader range of cancer immunotherapy tools.
Pfizer accounts for the majority of revenue from Comirnaty and shares the profits and costs of manufacturing and distributing the vaccine with development partner BioNTech
The COVID-19 vaccine hit the market in late 2020 and became Pfizer’s best-selling product in the second quarter of last year, before children received the preventive shots and adults received booster doses.
Pfizer accounts for the majority of revenue from Comirnaty and shares the profits and costs of manufacturing and distributing the vaccine with development partner BioNTech.
Comirnaty and Paxlovid have become key revenue drivers for Pfizer and have helped the pharma giant build a cash stash.
In May, Pfizer announced plans to use part of that supply.
It said it would spend $11.6 billion in cash to buy the remaining portion of migraine treatment developer Biohaven Pharmaceutical that it doesn’t already own.
Back in June, Pfizer and BioNTech announced they had signed a $3.2 billion deal with the US government for 105 million doses of their COVID-19 vaccine, which could ship as early as this summer.
According to Pfizer, the deal includes supplies of a retrofitted, Omicron-adapted vaccine, which is yet to be cleared by regulatory approval.
The average price per dose is over $30, an increase of more than 50% from the $19.50 per dose that the US government paid in its original contract with Pfizer.
The U.S. government also has the option to purchase up to 195 million additional doses, bringing the total number of potential doses to 300 million, the companies said.
The deal will boost vaccine sales in 2022 for Pfizer and BioNTech, which will share profits from the shots.
Pfizer has forecast COVID-19 vaccine sales of $32 billion this year. Analysts have forecast the recordings to average around $33.6 billion in revenue in 2022.
The US government has distributed nearly 450 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the United States since it was first approved in December 2020, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over 350 million of these doses have been administered.
Unable to raise additional COVID-19 funds from Congress earlier this month, the Biden administration was forced to reallocate $10 billion of existing funds to pay for additional vaccines and treatments.
According to HHS, the money to pay for the cans in this new contract comes from this funding.