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Sanofi lettering: New delays
Photo: Thibault Camus / AP
The French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi is working on two vaccines against the coronavirus, but both have problems that cost a lot of time.
The vaccine developed with the US partner Translate Bio will not be available this year, said the head of the drug manufacturer, Paul Hudson, of the newspaper "Le Journal du Dimanche".
So far, Sanofi had assumed that approval would already be possible in the second half of 2021.
The reasons for the delay were initially not known.
The candidate is based on the novel mRNA technology that Pfizer and Biontech as well as Moderna use for their already approved vaccines.
Clinical trials should begin this quarter as the vaccine had not yet been tested in humans.
"This vaccine won't be ready this year, but it could be useful at a later date - all the more so as the battle against mutations continues," Hudson said.
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Poor effectiveness in the elderly
The news is another setback for Sanofi.
The company is already battling a delay on its other Covid-19 vaccine candidate, for which it has partnered with UK-based GlaxoSmithKline.
The vaccine is based on viral proteins and works in a similar way to the flu vaccine Flublok.
However, the two companies announced in December that the drug was not producing adequate immune system responses in older adults.
Now the pharmaceutical companies want to start a new phase 2 study in February with an improved product.
If the results are positive, a large-scale test on several thousand subjects could begin in the second quarter of 2021 and the vaccine could be approved in the fourth quarter.
Because of the delays, Sanofi has free production capacity.
The group wants to produce more than 125 million doses of the Biontech / Pfizer vaccine from the summer, as Sanofi announced at the end of January.
The cans are intended for use in the European Union and are produced at the Frankfurt site.
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sep / Reuters