Cocorico: France will soon have its vaccine against Covid.
Cocoricouac: the United Kingdom will benefit first.
Biotech Valneva hits the mark: 150 adults are currently participating in a phase 1 and 2 clinical trial. If the antibodies are present and there are no adverse effects, a phase 3 trial will be launched with more than 4000 volunteers, the last step before a marketing authorization "next fall if all goes well", hopes the management of the laboratory.
However, the French will not have priority.
They will have to wait until at least January 2022. By the time the UK is supplied.
Why such favoritism?
Because the British government was the first to invest in French biotech.
"Without this agreement, we would probably not have been able to conduct our research to this point," says Franck Grimaud, CEO of Valneva.
They have been extremely responsive.
Less than three months after announcing that our vaccine would soon enter the testing phase, the British government signed us a first pre-order contract.
In total, if all options are exercised by 2025, it is more than 1.4 billion euros that the United Kingdom will have spent for a delivery of 190 million doses.
"
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British pounds sterling allowed Valneva to finance clinical trials, the construction of a new building at its production site in Scotland and the recruitment of 300 people.
The production has even started, even though there are still several months of testing.
Dangerous?
Not even !
Because if by chance the vaccine did not succeed, the laboratory would have nothing to reimburse.
The risk of the bet, in short, is exclusively borne by the British government.
"A terrible feeling of waste in the face of this failure"
But shouldn't France have taken this risk itself?
Some are convinced of it.
"How did France miss" its "first anti-Covid vaccine?
“, Wondered this Monday Christelle Mor Anglais, President (LR) of the Pays de la Loire region, where Valneva has set up its head office.
Last June, the elected official wrote to the Minister of Industry to alert her to the tremendous potential of biotech and the opportunity to develop, in Loire-Atlantique, a French vaccine production sector.
Balance sheet?
"A terrible feeling of waste and incomprehension which dominates in the face of this French and European failure", she deplores today.
At the Ministry of the Economy, senior officials do not have the same reading.
"The idea is spreading that Valneva will be the first French vaccine but we must set the record straight," insists the cabinet of Agnès Pannier Runacher, the Minister for Industry.
The Sanofi vaccine will arrive before.
The spotlight on this French company and the exile from its factories across the Channel are annoying.
"It's not just Valneva," creaks a white collar.
Other tricolor vaccines are under development ”, for example at the Vaccine Research Institute (VRI) or at Ose Immuno - another Nantes biotech.
"We are turning the tide"
And the ministry to redo the thread of Valneva history.
"The services began to discuss with the company on May 6," insists Bercy.
Several working meetings allowed them to present the
capacity build-up mechanisms
[
Editor's note: strengthening
production
capacities
] from which they could benefit.
Other labs, in passing, seized them, such as Delpharm, Recipharm or Fareva… But Valneva - we can regret it and we regret it - did not submit a call for projects ”.
Its CEO has made the decision to develop its vaccine in the UK.
The absence of a production site in France, combined with the existence of a factory in Scotland, weighed heavily… “We have been turning the tide for a few months, but we are paying for thirty years of divestment in the health industry, ”says someone close to Agnes Pannier Runacher.
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Could Paris have twisted the arm of the CEO of biotech?
Forcing Valneva to produce in France, in the name of national security?
If several laws and decrees in recent years have made it possible to monitor foreign investments in strategic companies and, if necessary, to veto them, "we are not equipped with tools for this kind of case", explains- do we at the Ministry of the Economy.
Clearly, Bercy can prevent the Canadian Couche-Tard, supermarket giant, from merging with Carrefour, but not forcing a laboratory to produce precious vaccines in France.
The war of nerves has only just begun
What then?
Last summer, when no serum was not yet available, Paris campaigned for the European portfolio to have at least one vaccine candidate based on Valneva technology.
Following these discussions, the Commission concluded “exploratory talks” with biotech and blocked “up to 60 million doses”.
Will the English actually have their bottles first?
“The AstraZeneca case shows that the argument
we signed before, we are delivered before
is not always valid.
Legally, it is not that simple… ”underlines a representative of the Commission.
Implied: the war of nerves has only just begun.
But why has the EU only placed the cursor on 60 million doses, while the UK has positioned itself at 190 million?
European caution can also be explained by political reasons.
“At the time when the discussions began, the Scottish plant was still benefiting from the transition period, but the EU wanted to favor production on its territory,” says a source familiar with the matter in Brussels.
Brexit would therefore have pushed Europeans to lack foresight.
Finally, it is the CEO of Valneva who flies to the rescue of Brussels.
"With companies like Sanofi or Valneva on the French side, the Danes from Bavarian Nordic, or the Germans from BioNTech and CureVac for RNA technologies, Europe really does not have to be ashamed of its position in the field of vaccines," emphasizes Franck. Grimaud.
And the centralized purchasing system that it has put in place has made it possible to avoid competition between states which would have been detrimental to all.
But it should now also equip itself with a European health agency, on the model of the Barda
(Editor's note: Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority)
, set up in the United States in the 2000s. "
A first step was taken last November with the announcement by the Commission of the creation of HERA (Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority), as part of the preparations for its new biodefense plan.
Brussels therefore plans to establish a European authority for responding to health emergencies, in order to provide a more structured approach to pandemic preparedness.
But it won't be for now.
In the meantime, the United Kingdom will no doubt have had plenty of time to receive its first doses of the Valneva vaccine.
