BioNTech and Pfizer will start testing universal vaccine for coronavirus

Test tubes in front of Pfizer and BioNTech logos in illustration photo

By Ludwig Burger

(Reuters) – Germany’s BioNTech, Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine partner, said the two companies will begin human trials of next-generation vaccines that protect against a wide variety of coronaviruses in the second half of the year.

His experimental work on vaccines that go beyond the current approach includes T-cell-enhancing vaccines, designed primarily to protect against serious disease if the virus becomes more dangerous, and pan-coronavirus vaccines that protect against the broader family of viruses and their mutations.

In presentation slides posted on BioNTech’s website for investor day, the German biotech company said its goal is “to provide durable variant protection.”

The two partners, makers of the most widely used Covid-19 vaccine in the Western world, are currently in discussions with regulators for improved versions of their established vaccine to better protect against the Ômicron variant and its sublines.

The persistent mutation of the virus into new variants that more easily escape vaccine protection, as well as the decrease in human immunological memory, have increased the urgency of the search by companies, governments and health agencies for more reliable protection tools.

As part of an effort to further boost its infectious disease business, BioNTech said it was independently working on precision antibiotics that kill superbugs that have become resistant to currently available anti-infectives.

BioNTech, which did not say when trials could begin, is leaning on technology from PhagoMed, which it acquired in October last year.