BioNTech Co-founders on COVID-19 Vaccines

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I ask you, Dr. Tureci, what would our world have looked like if mRNA had failed, what’s behind the Pfizer vaccine?

DR. OZLEM TURECI, CO-FOUNDER, BIONTECH: Well, mRNA vaccines have been now administered to hundreds of millions of people, and came just in time. So the world would have looked very different if we would not have to have been able to vaccinate so many.

AMANPOUR: And, Dr. Sahin, when your vaccine first hit the market, you did say this could be the beginning of the end of the COVID era. I’m wondering whether today you think the same.

DR. UGUR SAHIN, CO-FOUNDER, BIONTECH: Yes, I think vaccines are still the only way to end this pandemic or to control this pandemic. Without vaccines, we will not be able. But it does not mean that vaccine alone is a sufficient. Of course, we need to address all other kinds of measures. Vaccines are supportive to provide immunity, to prevent infections, to prevent further spread. But if not a sufficient number of individuals are vaccinated, we can’t get immunity. And if we can’t — if we don’t get herd immunity, we can’t control the pandemic.

AMANPOUR: So it does seem that is the bottom line. I mean, we know now that there are boosters that are being given out. We know that some public health officials, in fact, many, are suggesting that COVID could be like flu and require boosters every single year or certainly regularly. And we know, of course, about the variants. Is that what you see and foresee down the line?

TURECI: Yes, this is what we foresee, that boosters will most likely be needed. We, however, have to decide this based on data. And this data needs of a passage of time as we continue to observe how over time immune responses induced by vaccines and the protection develops.