Corona inactivated vaccine Valneva: EMA gives an update on the approval - and on the effect of the vaccine

Created: 2022-01-20 05:05

By: Luisa Billmayer

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is currently examining the vaccine from the French manufacturer Valneva.

Another step towards approval.

Amsterdam - Vaccinations are considered a very important means of successfully combating the corona pandemic.

The approved vaccines protect against severe courses with very good safety.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) is currently testing the vaccine "VLA2001" from the French manufacturer Valneva, as the agency showed again on Twitter on Wednesday, December 22nd.

According to the authority, it started on December 2, 2021.

Corona vaccine: EMA tests “VLA2001” from Valneva

Because preliminary laboratory studies were positive, the EMA's Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) began testing the vaccine.

"These studies suggest that the vaccine triggers the production of antibodies directed against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and may help protect against the disease," an EMA said -Letter from early December.

The testing of the vaccine is a first step towards approval, but it is still unclear how long it will take until the vaccine can actually be vaccinated.

The EMA writes on its website that the responsible committee will examine the data from clinical studies as soon as they are available.

"The EMA cannot give exact timing as it depends on when the developers will submit the necessary data for the CHMP review," it said.

EMA: This is how the “dead vaccine” Valneva is supposed to work

The EMA also describes how the vaccine should work.

“The vaccine contains inactivated (killed) SARS-CoV-2, which cannot cause the disease.

VLA2001 also contains two adjuvants, ie substances that enhance the immune response to the vaccine," writes the agency.

“When a person receives the vaccine, their immune system recognizes the inactivated virus as foreign and makes antibodies against it.

If the vaccinated person later comes into contact with SARS-CoV-2, the immune system recognizes the virus and is ready to fight it off.”

A syringe is held in front of the words "vaccination".

© Friso Gentsch/dpa/symbol image

Unlike the Biontech/Pfizer and Moderna vaccines used for the first time, the Valneva vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine, but a so-called "dead vaccine".

The vaccine owes its name to the previously killed viruses it contains.

Before the introduction of the mRNA vaccines, the "dead vaccines" were considered classic vaccines.

Valneva boss advises against waiting for "dead vaccine".

For their corona immunization, some people are said to be waiting for vaccines that are based on other technologies such as the vaccines that have been available so far: for example "VLA2001".

But the Valneva boss thinks little of this attitude.

"I'm not advising anyone to wait for our vaccine," Thomas Lingelbach, managing director of biotechnology company Valneva, told the news magazine

.

“That would be ethically unacceptable.” He is currently recommending vaccines from other manufacturers to relatives and acquaintances.

He recently had himself boosted with Biontech's mRNA product.