Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel on Monday trumpeted new data showing his company’s vaccine remains effective in battling new coronavirus variants, even as he painted a long road ahead in the war against the pandemic.

The biotech firm’s study showed what it called “protective” immune responses to both the variant first documented in the U.K. (B.1.1.7) and the variant seen in South Africa (B.1.351).

Yet Bancel gave a stark assessment of the pandemic, saying there is good reason to expect a need for ongoing booster shots to protect against mutations that could propagate other variants of SARS-Cov-2, the virus behind the global COVID-19 outbreak.

“I believe SARS-Cov-2 is going to stay with humans forever,” Bancel said in an interview with Yahoo Finance Live. “We're going to have to have boosts adapted to a virus, like we have for flu. It's the same thing, they are both mRNA viruses, and we're going to have to live with it forever.”

The company announced Monday it was also beginning a test of an additional booster dose of its vaccine, out of an abundance of caution to potentially strengthen the immune response against emerging strains.

Bancel noted that while the original two-dose vaccine did, in fact, preserve a protective response against the South African strain, with neutralizing antibodies diminished six-fold relative to prior variants.

Nonetheless, Bancel said the vaccine still delivered a stronger immune response relative to what would be expected in patients contracting COVID-19, and the company downplayed fears that its vaccine would become ineffective against the newer strains.

Looking ahead, Bancel stressed the importance the booster shot dose, given production capacity constraints already stretched thin amid deliveries of its two-dose vaccine.

“The big question with the boost is going to be the dose,” he said. “Do you need 25 or 50 or 100 micrograms? The current product that is authorized by the FDA is 100 micrograms, twice: A prime and a boost.”

He reaffirmed Moderna’s original goal to deliver 100 million vaccine doses to the U.S. by March as planned. However, what studies come to show on booster dosing could loom large when it comes to keeping ahead of future variants.

“If a dose was 50 or 25 micrograms, which is possible because your immune system is already prepared, you might not need to have a big increase of capacity,” he said.

Setting the ‘bar for success’
The CEO of Moderna Stéphane Bancel is seen in this video frame grab as he speaks during an interview with AFP on November 17, 2020. - The CEO of Moderna warned European countries on November 17, 2020 that dragging out negotiations to purchase its promising new Covid-19 vaccine will slow down deliveries, as other nations that have signed deals will get priority. "It is clear that with a delay this is not going to limit the total amount but it is going to slow down delivery," Stephane Bancel said in an interview with AFP. (Photo by Ivan Couronne / AFP) (Photo by IVAN COURONNE/AFP via Getty Images)
The CEO of Moderna Stéphane Bancel is seen in this video frame grab as he speaks during an interview with AFP on November 17, 2020. - The CEO of Moderna warned European countries on November 17, 2020 that dragging out negotiations to purchase its promising new Covid-19 vaccine will slow down deliveries, as other nations that have signed deals will get priority. "It is clear that with a delay this is not going to limit the total amount but it is going to slow down delivery," Stephane Bancel said in an interview with AFP. (Photo by Ivan Couronne / AFP) (Photo by IVAN COURONNE/AFP via Getty Images)
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Of course, the pandemic future depends on a number of factors. Among the most pressing questions are the slow rollout of vaccines for the public and the timing of other vaccine approvals — including Johnson & Johnson’s (JNJ) vaccine candidate, which may come within the next two weeks.

Bancel said another vaccine candidate joining the effort being led by Moderna and Pfizer (PFE) could help shift his company’s capacity focus towards boosters for problematic variants in the fall.

“I hope the Johnson & Johnson vaccine [comes] soon,” he said, noting that Moderna’s mRNA vaccine technology has led to a faster approval process than some others.

“Some technologies will not be able to go fast enough. Think about it, some of the older technology they're quoting, they have said that they won't have a vaccine until the end of the year,” he speculated.

As Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO Health Emergencies Program, recently observed, the virus is expected to continue spreading and mutating for quite some time while vaccine doses are administered. That makes controlling the virus a first step, but quite a distance from completely wiping it out.

“I don’t believe we should start setting elimination or eradication of this virus as the bar for success,” Bancel told Yahoo Finance. “The bar for success is reducing the capacity of this virus to kill, to put people in hospital, to destroy our economic (and) social lives.”

Well I thought Joe had a plan could it be possibly that the plan is is is Hmmm what was it now, its coming to me Gotta start writin this scat down OH maybe i did

It’s the THING! You know, the THING.

I took the Phizer, and was glad to get either one. To those who refuse, thanks for moving me up the line.

What a crock, just try to keep everybody scared and dependent on them. This country is so corrupt!

VA called and said they have vaccine in and offered the shot. I told them to contact Charles, he wants it, I dont!

The first SARS mutated it's way into nothingness. Any proclamation saying this will be with us in its current form for decades or forever is rediculous. It might still exist in some form much as the Spanish flu is still here today and they still can't get that vaccine right.

Charles.....you can have mine for your wife

You're welcome.

X2 Swamp Wolf. They ain't making me take that crappy shot

You sound like you must have a bunch of co-morbidities. You know that getting the vaccine only helps you, right?

So let me get this straight. You sell us on the vaccine that’s supposed to protect us, for months you’ve pushed it on everyone. Now that the vaccine is out, you’re still pushing it, but now you’re also pushing periodical boosters? Does that sound like a drug company trying to take advantage of the fear and stress the pandemic has caused in order to make money on it in perpetuity? Why yes, yes it sure does.

I haven't read all this nonsense, but I literally just escaped a quarantine from the 28th of December 2020, in which my whole family of 4 had the virus, not at the same time (mind you(which I never got, I was tested multiple times)), and now I'm supposed to shut my life down until the end? Not happening, I will wear a face covering if I'm badgered into doing so, but I'm not getting a vaccine, and I'm not shutting down anymore! Thanks be to God!

Masks still required at every store in town. Masks required to fly here. (The only way to arrive unless you're up for a 800 mile snow machine ride. Bring your own gas.) Entire villages were wiped out up here in 1918 by the flu. Long memories of very bad times. Very few refusing vaccinations.

Why even compare pandemics between 2021 to 1918?
Medicine is so far advanced today over that earlier era that wouldn't even discover penicillin for another 10 years? Apples and donuts comparison.
Like saying flying today is about like Orville Wright.

Come on man.

Not exactly dropping like flies where I live. Not dropping at all. This whole thing is bogus.

Truth

It's been a very common topic here. Every native family up here had relatives die in 1918. Sometimes entire families. An orphanage was started up here for surviving children. I agree with your assessment. I'm living proof of medical advances even though I'm allergic to penicillin.