Because the French Sanofi will give up the anti-Covid vaccine
The French pharmaceutical company Sanofi has announced that it intends to give up the development of its mRna vaccine, given the success achieved by Pfizer and Moderna
Sanofi throws in the towel on the Covid vaccine.
The French pharmaceutical company will not go to phase 3 of the tests for its messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19 that it is developing with Translate Bio (a company of which it has recently completed the acquisition), the last step before commercialization. This was announced by the French pharmaceutical company.
Despite the positive results of the Phase 1-2 trial of its messenger RNA vaccine, Sanofi believes the product will hit the market too late, when 12 billion doses of Covid vaccines have been produced by the end of the year.
For the French pharmaceutical company this is yet another stop after the delays in testing another vaccine.
In December 2020, Sanofi and GSK had in fact announced a delay in their program to develop a vaccine for Covid-19, due to the lack of satisfactory effects in the elderly. In today's release, Sanofi stressed to continue working on the development of the recombinant protein vaccine in collaboration with GSK.
All the details.
THE STOP DECIDED BY SANOFI
Sanofi has halted development of its Covid-19 vaccine based on messenger RNA technology, acknowledging the lag in the market compared to rivals BioNTech / Pfizer and Moderna.
“If we had arrived on the market at the end of 2022 or the beginning of 2023, we would have arrived late and without differentiation,” said one of the company's managers, Thomas Triomphe.
WHAT POINT WAS THE SERUM
The decision comes despite the positive results of the early stage studies.
Initial data from the messenger RNA technology study show seroconversion levels, i.e. antibody production, from 91% to 100% two weeks after the second injection, Sanofi points out. Furthermore, no side effects were observed and the safety profile is comparable to that of other Covid-19 RNA vaccines, such as those developed by the German-American tandem Pfizer-BioNTech and the Modern American biotech.
THE MOTIVATION
"The need is not to create new Covid-19 RNA vaccines, but to equip France and Europe with an arsenal of messenger RNA vaccines for an upcoming pandemic, for new diseases", stressed Triomphe. Therefore, Sanofi will not develop phase 3 for this vaccine, because "there is no need for public health to have another messenger RNA vaccine," he added.
WHAT THE FRENCH PHARMACEUTICAL HOUSE WILL DO WITH GSK
Finally, the French group will focus on efforts with UK partner GlaxoSmithKline to bring another Covi-19 vaccine candidate based on the more conventional protein-based approach to market, where mass trials are underway.
Not only that, Sanofi says it wants to develop vaccines with its proven mRNA technology to other diseases anyway. The goal is to produce vaccines without side effects and with fewer restrictions in terms of storage temperature. The group has already started the first trials for a monovalent vaccine – with a single virus strain – against seasonal flu.
The company said on Tuesday it wanted to start clinical trials against influenza next year, this time with a quadrivalent vaccine.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/sanita/perche-la-francese-sanofi-rinuncia-al-vaccino-anti-covid/ on Wed, 29 Sep 2021 09:37:14 +0000.