The French drug manufacturer Sanofi SA is currently working on two vaccine projects. (Reuters)
Paris:
French drug maker Sanofi SA said Tuesday it expects to get approval for the potential COVID-19 vaccine it is developing with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline Plc by the first half of next year, faster provided that.
Sanofi, which hosts a virtual research and development event, and GSK said in April that the vaccine, if successful, would be available in the second half of 2021.
“We are guided by our dialogue with regulatory authorities,” Sanofi research chief John Reed told reporters when asked about the accelerated deadline.
There is currently no vaccine to prevent the coronavirus that infected more than 9 million people and killed more than 469,000 worldwide, and only a few drugs that have shown benefits in COVID-19 inpatients in clinical trials .
Many drug manufacturers are rushing to find a safe and effective vaccine that can be produced on a large scale.
Moderna Inc, the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca Plc, and an alliance of BioNTech and Pfizer Inc made the headlines by switching to human trials in March.
Sanofi general manager Paul Hudson said the first in the race was not guaranteed to win.
“There are companies that move faster, but let’s be very clear, speed has three drawbacks,” he said of the competition.
“They are using the existing work, in many cases for SARS; it is likely that it will not be as efficient; and there are no guarantees on supplying large volumes,” said Hudson.
Sanofi’s likelihood of success is “higher than anyone else,” said the CEO.
The comments echo those of GSK, whose medical director of vaccines told Reuters on Friday that the company aims for quality before speed.
Sanofi, whose Pasteur Vaccines division has a long reputation, particularly in the flu, is currently working on two vaccine projects.
An adjuvant manufactured by GSK is used to potentially increase its effectiveness. It has received financial support from the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
The other, developed with the American company Translate Bio Inc, is based on a different technology called mRNA, similar to the Moderna approach.
Clinical trials of the vaccine developed with GSK, described as a recombinant vaccine due to the use of the GSK booster, are scheduled to start in September. Trials of the mRNA vaccine candidate are expected to begin later this year, the company said.
Sanofi said it has the capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses per year of its recombinant vaccine, and that it would be able to supply up to 360 million doses of its mRNA vaccine per year.
In April, Sanofi said it had a production capacity of 600 million doses for its recombinant vaccine, with the ambition to double production by mid-2021.
The company also said it would expand its collaboration with Translate Bio on vaccine development as part of an agreement that will give the U.S. group $ 425 million in upfront payments.
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
