As authorized COVID-19 vaccines are modified to protect against emerging strains of the pandemic disease, the UK will require only short clinical trials enrolling small numbers of volunteers to prove the altered vaccines are safe and effective, the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) said.

Germany’s CureVac has partnered with pharma giant Novartis to potentially manufacture hundreds of millions of doses of the small company’s COVID-19 vaccine candidate, CVnCoV, which is now under review by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) has begun a rolling review of the Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, but the European Commission doesn’t appear in a rush to secure doses.