The co-founder of the German pharmaceutical BioNTech, Ugur Sahin, is confident that the vaccine developed by his laboratory and distributed, together with US partner Pfizer, will be “effective” against the Indian variant.
“Our method is based on the experiences gained against cancer. We experimented with many variants and, so far, we have achieved good results in all of them,” Sahin said in a virtual meeting with representatives of the foreign media in Germany.
Sahin, who runs the company with his wife and scientist Özlem Türeci, warned that, the maximum effectiveness of his drug – 97% – is not reached until seven days after receiving the second dose adding that six months after having achieved that maximum immunity, through the second dose, it then begins to decline.
According to their current estimates, this would imply that, between the nine and twelve month points, a third dose will probably be necessary, in order to guarantee the continuance of maximum immunity.
