First Moderna, now Pfizer-BioNTech working on booster shot amid rise of COVID-19 variants

One major concern over emerging coronavirus variants focuses on their impact on the efficacy of existing vaccines. But drugmakers appear to have countermeasures in the works. Pfizer and partner BioNTech are developing booster shots so that their COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty can protect against new, highly contagious variants, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “Every time a new variant comes up we should be able to test whether or not [our vaccine] is effective,” Bourla was quoted as saying. “Once we discover something that it is not as effective, we will very, very quickly be able to produce a booster dose that will be a small variation to the current vaccine.”