Sanofi & GSK COVID Vaccine Delayed, To Be Out Only by End of 2021

The announcement came after interim results of the vaccine showed a low immune response in older adults.

COVID-19 vaccine. Representational image.

(Photo: IANS)

In a setback to efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic, French company Sanofi pharmaceuticals and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the world’s leading vaccine manufacturers on Friday, 11 December, said that their coronavirus vaccine will not be ready for distribution until the end of 2021.

The announcement came after interim results of the tests of the vaccine showed a low immune response in older adults, AFP reported.

Both the companies have contracts with multiple countries, including the United States and Britain, as well as the European Union.

A statement said that the vaccine's potential availability had been pushed back "from mid-2021 to Q4 2021” in order to "improve immune response in older adults."

“Sanofi and GSK announce a delay in their adjuvanted recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine program to improve immune response in older adults. Phase 1/2 study interim results showed an immune response comparable to patients who recovered from COVID-19 in adults aged 18 to 49 years, but a low immune response in older adults likely due to an insufficient concentration of the antigen”.

Press statement

Sanofi’s recombinant technology and GSK’s pandemic adjuvant are established vaccine platforms that have proven successful against influenza.

No Question of Abandoning Vaccine

Sanofi had hoped to start a Phase 3 trial of the vaccine this month and had projected it could produce 100 million doses of vaccine in 2020, and 1 billion doses in 2021.

"We care greatly about public health which is why we are disappointed by the delay announced today, but all our decisions are and will always be driven by science and data," Thomas Triomphe, Executive Vice President and Head of Sanofi Pasteur.said about the delay, according to AFP.

Triomphe told AFP that there was no question of abandoning the vaccine and that the makers had identified the way forward.

Meanwhile, Roger Connor, President of GSK Vaccines added that while the results of the study were not as hoped, there was hope that it could be improved to “elicit a robust immune response”.

A Phase 2b study is expected to commence in February 2021, based on the results of which a global Phase 3 study could start later in the year.

(With inputs from AFP)