President Joe Biden listens as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks Thursday, June 10, 2021, in St. Ives, England. Biden spoke about his administration's global COVID-19 vaccination efforts ahead of the G-7 summit.
President Joe Biden listens as Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaks Thursday, June 10, 2021, in St. Ives, England.
AP Photo/Patrick Semansky
  • Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told Fox it's "likely" a vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant will emerge.
  • Bourla said Pfizer could make a new vaccine tailor-made to such a variant within 95 days of its discovery.
  • The CDC Director said the coronavirus was "a few mutations" potentially away from evolving to evade vaccines.
  • Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Dr. Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, told Fox News on Tuesday that he believes it's "likely" a vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant will eventually emerge.

"Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it," Bourla said Tuesday. "And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven't identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge."

Bourla added that Pfizer could produce new versions of its vaccine within three months to combat new variants.

"We have built a process that within 95 days from the day that we identify a variant as a variant of concern we will be able to have a vaccine 'tailor-made' against this variant," Bourla said.

This is not the first time this concern of vaccine evasion has been brought up, though experts opinions are split.

"These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death, but the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge - just a few mutations potentially away - could potentially evade our vaccines," Director of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Rochelle Walensky said in a July 27 press briefing.

The UK government's advisory panel, the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, too, said higher rates of virus circulation and transmission are creating "more opportunities for new variants to emerge."

The CDC estimates 93% of US states are at a "high level of community transmission" as of Monday. New daily cases have more than quadrupled in the last month.

But Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada, told the Telegraph that the possibility of a vaccine-resistant strain is unlikely.

"It would require so many mutations in the spike protein that this virus wouldn't 'work' anymore," Rasmussen said.

Watch the clip of Dr. Albert Bourla here:

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