This Tuesday evening, the Head of State brings together the major French and European pharmaceutical players in order to take stock of the production capacity of Covid-19 vaccines and find how to improve the production offer.

Several ministers, including Olivier Véran, are invited to this meeting.

Emmanuel Macron brings together the major French and European pharmaceutical players this Tuesday evening to encourage them to increase and accelerate the production of vaccines against Covid-19 in France and in Europe, said the Elysee.

The objective is to find "the ways and means to improve the production supply in France and in Europe, in the short term, but also the tracks that we can and must consider to produce more in the medium term", declared the Head of State by opening the meeting.

Coordinate the effort at European level 

The purpose of this meeting, partly by video, was to "draw up an inventory of the production capacity" of vaccines at the French and European levels and to "call for maximizing this capacity in the short term" for "the increase rapidly and significantly, "said the president's entourage.

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The challenge is in particular to shorten technology transfers, which generally take more than 18 months to complete, to reduce them to a few months, in order to vaccinate all Europeans as quickly as possible.

All solutions must be explored: passage in 3x8, new lines, reinforcements, etc., explained the presidency.

The Head of State was to offer the best support to industrial players by accelerating the regulatory process or even operational support, thanks to a dedicated team, placed under the authority of the Minister for Industry Agnès Pannier -Runacher.

The effort must be coordinated at European level.  

Several ministers present

Emmanuel Macron invited to this meeting several ministers, Olivier Véran (Health) and Agnès Pannier-Runacher (Industry) and Clément Beaune (European Affairs), as well as the Director General of Health, Jérôme Salomon, while the European Commissioners Thierry Breton and Stella Kyriakides were to participate by videoconference.

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On the industrial side, were present managers of vaccine-producing laboratories (BioNTech, Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Curevac, Janssen, Valneva and Novavax), the main French, European and global pharmaceutical subcontractors with production sites based in France ( Delpharm, Recipharm, Fareva, Cenexi, Unither, laboratories Sanofi, GSK, ABL / Transgene (Institut Mérieux), Aspen, Ipsen, Eli Lilly, Regeneron / Roche, Celtrion and Merck as well as veterinary laboratories (Boeringher Ingelheim, Virbac, Ceva ), said the Elysee.

The HAS has decided on the AstraZeneca vaccine

France is seeking to speed up the vaccination of the elderly, which the available doses of the two other vaccines on the market (Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna) cannot cover immediately.

The High Authority for Health (HAS) France announced Tuesday afternoon that the third authorized vaccine, that of AstraZeneca, was not recommended to over 65s, like several other countries in Europe. 

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According to a latest report from the Ministry of Health established on Sunday evening, there were 1.486 million first injections in France, and 47,137 second injections, while 2.6 million doses were received in France and 1.1 million are expected this week.