MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th February, 2021) The United Kingdom has entered a partnership with Germany's pharmaceutical company CureVac to develop vaccines against new COVID-19 variants, the government announced on Friday.
"The new agreement will utilise UK expertise on genomics and virus sequencing to allow new varieties of vaccines based on messenger RNA technology to be developed quickly against new strains of Covid-19 if they are needed," the cabinet said.
It noted that Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines "appear to work well" against the coronavirus variants currently dominant in the country. A newly established government expert group, however, will work to "identify the variants that the UK could need vaccines against."
"Almost all vaccines developed through this partnership against new Covid-19 strains will be variants of an existing jab by CureVac which is currently undergoing Phase 3 clinical trials," the statement explained, adding that the process is similar to an yearly update of flu vaccines.
The UK has already made an initial order for 50 million doses of such prospective vaccines to be shipped this year, if necessary.
The partnership, the cabinet noted, will bolster UK manufacturing capacity and prepare it for all eventualities.
