In the race for the Covid-19 vaccine, Sanofi’s journey has been strewn with pitfalls. The French pharmaceutical giant, which has accumulated delays, finally sees the finish line. He announced, this Wednesday, February 23, positive results for the vaccine he is developing with the British GSK, after phase 3 trials conducted with thousands of people.
The laboratories have not yet made public the studies on which these results are based, but assure that the vaccine is effective in avoiding any hospitalization. They also report slightly more than 50% efficacy against all infections causing symptoms. This is “comparable to the effectiveness of vaccines already available”, underlines Sanofi, while the rise of the Omicron variant has questioned the effectiveness of existing vaccines against contamination.
Approval in USA and EU
In a joint press releaseSanofi and GSK said they would “seek regulatory approval for their vaccine against [le] Covid-19” in the United States and in the European Union (EU). This announcement opens the doors to them for the next marketing of their anti-Covid vaccine, if the health authorities on each side of the Atlantic give the green light. This would mark the culmination of a series for Sanofi which, for a year, has recorded several setbacks and postponements in the design of its vaccine.
The company hoped to make it available in mid-2021, a few months after the first vaccines authorized in the EU. But she had to push her schedule back six months because of a dosage issue. The laboratory had indeed discovered, at the end of the phase 2 trial, that its vaccine was under-dosed and that it did not trigger a sufficient immune response in the elderly. Its competitors, notably Pfizer-BioNTech, were already well ahead. Subsequently, Sanofi accumulated additional delays due to difficulties in finding people who had never been infected to conduct reliable trials.
Recombinant protein
The French laboratory, which gave up on another vaccine project based on messenger RNA technology – used by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna – chose a slightly less innovative technology for its vaccine, based on a recombinant protein. It is the same as that of the American Novavax vaccine, which should begin to be distributed in France at the end of February.
Health officials hope these vaccines will be welcomed by people wary of messenger RNA technology, while insisting that such fears are unfounded. Five vaccines are currently authorized by the European Commission : those of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Janssen and Novavax.