French pharmaceutical group Sanofi hopes to have a COVID-19 vaccine ready by December of this year. Currently, the immunizing agent is in phase III clinical trials – the most recent before the application for registration is submitted.
On Monday (5), in an interview with France Inter, the head of Sanofi in France, Olivier Poggio, explained that this immunizing agent (in two doses) uses the same technology as the influenza vaccine.
“It’s been a proven technology for years,” he said, which relies on a recombinant protein with an adjuvant that boosts the immune system.
Despite scolding the French pharmaceutical giant for arriving too late for other companies that could develop their own vaccines several months ago, Bogelo insisted that Sanofi’s vaccine would be very useful.
First, because even in France a part of the citizens have not yet been vaccinated, because a high percentage will have to be reached to have herd immunity and because there are still great needs around the world, having received only 20% so far in at least one dose.
Furthermore, he was convinced that a third booster potion should be given.
France’s Minister of State for Consumer Affairs, Agnes Pannier-Runacher, indicated on Monday, in another interview with France Info, that the European Union is negotiating to buy vaccines from Sanofi and that the process is “progressing well”.
Pannier-Runacher, who explained that the results of the second phase tests were excellent and that the product developed by Sanofi has some advantages that could make it useful especially in developing countries because it is stored in the refrigerator and is cheaper than technological messenger RNA vaccines.
