The potential Valneva vaccine is still in preclinical trials (representational)
London:
Britain has signed agreements to secure 90 million doses of two possible COVID-19 vaccines from an alliance of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, and the French group Valneva, the Foreign Ministry announced on Monday.
Britain has obtained 30 million doses of the experimental BioNTech / Pfizer vaccine and an agreement in principle for 60 million doses of the Valneva vaccine, with an option of 40 million additional doses if it is found to be safe, effective and appropriate said the ministry. .
As no effective vaccine against COVID-19 has yet been developed, Great Britain now has three different types of vaccine on order and a total of 230 million doses potentially available.
“This new partnership with some of the world‘s largest pharmaceutical and vaccine companies will guarantee the UK the best chance of getting a vaccine that protects those most at risk,” said Foreign Minister Alok Sharma.
Financial terms have not been revealed.
The deals follow a previously announced deal with AstraZeneca to produce 100 million doses of its potential vaccine under development in partnership with the University of Oxford.
Britain said it was the first such agreement by Pfizer and BioNTech for the supply of their vaccine, which is currently being tested in early to intermediate stage trials.
Companies aim to manufacture up to 100 million doses by the end of this year and potentially more than 1.2 billion doses by the end of 2021, if the vaccine succeeds.
It uses the so-called messenger RNA approach, unlike the more traditional inactivated whole virus vaccine developed by Valneva.
Valneva’s potential vaccine is still in preclinical trials, and the company plans to move to clinical trials by the end of 2020.
Britain also said on Monday that it had obtained treatments containing antibodies neutralizing COVID-19 from AstraZeneca to protect people who cannot be vaccinated.
(Report by Alistair Smout; Editing by Richard Pullin and Peter Graff)
(With the exception of the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
