With over 100 vaccines are being tested and developed to stop the spread of COVID-19, it seems that governments worldwide are racing to secure supplies of vaccines even before their efficiency is proven. As per the latest news, Britain government is close to a USD 625 million supply deals with Sanofi S.A. and GlaxoSmithKline plc for 60 million doses of potential COVID-19 vaccine.
Sources cite that the agreement with GSK and Sanofi would be Britain’s second such deal after it said it would purchase 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. The government authorities in the UK are actively engaging with several companies both abroad and the UK to negotiate access to vaccines, a spokesperson from Britain’s business ministry, said without revealing the names of companies.
Sanofi is currently working on two potential COVID-19 vaccines, one of which usez an adjuvant made by GSK to boost its efficacy. The company has also said that it can develop up to 1 billion doses annually. The clinical trials of vaccines are expected to commence in September and Sanofi expects to get approval by the first half of 2021, sooner than previously expected.
However, its timeline for human clinical trials is much behind the likes of the Oxford University in collaboration with AstraZeneca Plc, Moderna Inc, and an alliance of Pfizer Inc and BioNTech. The projects of these companies have grabbed headlines by entering into human trials in early March.
Sanofi has also received financial backing from America. The European Union (EU) is also looking for a deal with Sanofi and has requested Britain to join its efforts to purchase vaccines for the bloc.
Meanwhile, both Sanofi and GSK did not respond to request for comment. Both firms have said that they are focusing on quality over speed in developing vaccines.