In Vitro Study Suggests Pfizer-BioNTech Vaccine Effective Against SARS-CoV-2 Variant
A new in vitro study provides additional data suggesting that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can neutralize the B.1.1.7 variant of SARS-CoV-2.
B.1.1.7 carries 10 mutations on its spike protein and is thought to be highly transmissible. It first emerged in the U.K. and has now been detected in at least 20 U.S. states.
In the study, posted on the preprint server bioRxiv, industry researchers generated SARS-CoV-2 pseudoviruses with either the B.1.1.7 variant or the Wuhan reference strain. They then tested whether sera from 16 adults aged 18-85 who’d received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (known as BNT162b2) could neutralize the pseudoviruses.
The researchers found “no biologically significant difference in neutralization activity against the two pseudoviruses.” They conclude that it’s “very unlikely that the UK variant viruses will escape BNT162b2-mediated protection.”
bioRxiv study (not peer-reviewed)
CDC map of states with B.1.1.7 variant