Covid-19: Europe signs a contract for a new vaccine, "Hipra", created in Spain

Even though the registration has still not been approved by the European regulator, the Spanish pharmaceutical firm Hipra has already signed a contract with the European Commission to sell them up to 250 million doses of the anti-Covid vaccine.

This is to complete the range of vaccines available to EU countries to "ensure a maximum level of preparedness as the autumn and winter months approach", explained the Commissioner for Health, Stella Kyriakides, quoted in a press release.

“An increase in vaccination and the administration of booster doses will prove essential in the coming months,” she added.

The head of the Spanish government Pedro Sanchez welcomed this announcement, during a trip to the Balearic Islands on Tuesday.

“We have finally obtained this Spanish vaccine”, he welcomed, seeing in it “a magnificent proof of the good collaboration” between a State and a private company.

A “booster” vaccine

The vaccine developed by Hipra, described as "a bivalent recombinant protein vaccine", is being evaluated by the European Medicines Agency (EMA) based in the Netherlands.

It is designed as a booster dose for people aged 16 or over, the Commission says.

This vaccine is kept refrigerated, between 2 and 8 ° C, which facilitates its storage and distribution in Europe and around the world, underlines the press release.

If the vaccine receives a marketing authorisation, the fourteen EU countries participating in the joint procurement will be able to purchase it through the framework contract already in place.

As part of its strategy to fight Covid, the EU has already approved six other vaccines developed by the groups Pfizer/BioNTech, AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, Novavax and Valneva.

A contract has also been signed with Sanofi-GSK for another booster vaccine, also still being evaluated by the European regulator.