Illustration of Valneva vaccine doses -

JUSTIN TALLIS / AFP

Soon a seventh vaccine for Europe?

The European Commission announced on Tuesday that it was in talks with the Franco-Austrian biotech Valneva, to buy up to 60 million doses of potential vaccine against the coronavirus.

The EU has already signed six contracts with pharmaceutical companies for vaccine orders, and is also in discussions with the American Novavax for a maximum of 200 million doses (100 farms plus 100 options).

A different formula

Once negotiations with Novavax and Valneva are finalized, Europe would have contracts with eight different laboratories for a potential of more than 2.5 billion doses.

"The contract envisaged with Valneva would provide for the possibility, for all the Member States of the EU, to buy together 30 million doses initially, then up to 30 million additional doses", specifies the European executive in a statement.

“With this eighth vaccine, we are enriching the already large and diverse range of vaccines in our portfolio.

By doing so, we can maximize our chances that all citizens can have access to safe and effective vaccines by the end of 2021 ”, commented European Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides.

Valneva's vaccine was developed using a proven, inactivated virus-based technology - as opposed to messenger RNA, the solution used by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.

Valneva had indicated in mid-December to start its clinical trials on humans for its candidate vaccine against Covid-19, already ordered by the United Kingdom.

Phase 2-3 should be launched at the end of March, beginning of April, indicates the biotech.

Then “we have to apply for provisional UK registration in September.

As soon as the vaccine is accepted, we will deliver our first doses, ”said Franck Grimaud, CEO of Valneva.

Deliveries to the EU at the start of 2022

As for the first deliveries to the countries of the European Union, Valneva says he is counting on the beginning of 2022. Its managing director believes, however, that the vaccine will not arrive too late.

“We will need reminders to maintain a good level of protection.

The reminders will be able to be done with all types of vaccines, ”he said.

In addition, he believes, the biotech vaccine is an asset in the event of a mutation of the coronavirus.

"One of the advantages of our approach is that we keep all of the virus that we have inactivated: therefore there is a fairly variable production of antibodies, and not only on the" spike "protein targeted by the first developments (of vaccines, etc.).

We think that with this technology, we have a good chance of being able to respond to possible mutations in this virus, ”he emphasizes.

As for the price of the vaccine, which will be administered in two doses, Franck Grimaud just indicates that it is "neither in the cheapest, nor the most expensive".

Two vaccines already on the European market

The European Commission has already signed contracts with the Swedish-British AstraZeneca and the American Johnson & Johnson (up to 400 million doses from each), the Franco-British duo Sanofi-GSK (up to 300 million doses ), the American-German duo Pfizer-BioNTech (up to 600 million doses), the German CureVac (up to 405 million doses) and the American Moderna (up to 160 million doses).

Only Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have received the green light from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to be deployed in the EU.

The European regulator will look at the AstraZeneca vaccine at the end of January, already authorized by London.

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