Against all expectations, the hope of a vaccine against Covid-19 will not come from a pharmaceutical giant but from a small thumb.
In the suburbs of Nantes, Valneva, a Franco-Austrian laboratory specializing in biotechnology, has chosen to base its vaccine candidate on a technology identical to that of the influenza vaccine.
And the preliminary results from clinical trials are encouraging.
However, the first doses will not be delivered to France or Europe but to the United Kingdom, the first to have believed in the project.
"They made us a financing proposal very quickly," explains Franck Grimaud, CEO of Valneva.
"What is lacking not only in France but in Europe, are large investment funds sufficiently endowed, dedicated to health and capable of taking risks so that biotech companies can go all the way ".
A situation that pushes some research leaders to leave France, such as the French Stéphane Bancel at the head of Moderna.
But start-ups are not the only ones concerned, the giants of the pharmaceutical industry are also looking abroad.
>> To read: Anti-Covid-19 vaccines: Pasteur and Sanofi, symbols of the decline in French research?
Bad choice and lack of infrastructure
However, how to explain the rout of the Pasteur Institute and the giant Sanofi?
"There are a number of technologies that all deserve to be evaluated when faced in particular with a pandemic situation. Some will work, others not", explains Christophe d'Enfert, director of scientific research at the 'Pastor Institute.
"Maybe the design we made of the antigen is not the same as the one that was done in other situations, and so maybe it's not the right one. But I don't know. "
Beyond the bad choices, the Institut Pasteur does not have the production lines essential to conduct clinical trials.
It took him six months to sign a partnership with Merck, and finally begin the research process against much more reactive competitors.
"For example, Oxford has a production infrastructure and therefore it is not necessarily dependent on a service provider, and this allows it to save time", specifies Christophe d'Enfert.
The vaccine race marathon
On the side of Sanofi, we have not yet given up all hope of a vaccine.
Last May, the pharmaceutical giant created controversy: it received from the American federal agency a check for nearly two billion euros to carry out its research and announced that it would provide its vaccines as a priority to the United States.
After a first failure last December, the French giant announces that it has resumed phase II clinical trials.
For Vincent Maréchal, virologist, France is still in the race.
"The vaccine race is not over because there are two major issues: ensuring global vaccination (...) and variants appear, so we will have to develop new vaccines adapted to their emergence. "
Pfizer-BioNTech, Astrazeneca-Oxford, Valneva, all assure this: they will be able to adapt their vaccine to mutations in the virus, suggesting a multitude of vaccines on the market.
Despite the urgency, the vaccine race is therefore much less a sprint than a marathon.
A program prepared by Patrick Lovett, Rebecca Martin and James Vasina.
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