Phase 3 studies for Sanofi.

The French pharmaceutical giant has taken an important step in its Covid-19 vaccine project and announced, Thursday, May 27, the start of large-scale trials.

After months of delay, this is the last step before its launch, scheduled for the end of 2021.

Sanofi and the British GSK - which provides it with its adjuvant - "are starting an international phase 3 study to assess the effectiveness of their candidate vaccine against (the) Covid-19", a statement from the French group indicates Thursday, ten days later the announcement of encouraging results after initial trials.

The latter, carried out on a few hundred people, showed that this vaccine causes the production of antibodies against the coronavirus in most of the subjects to which it has been injected.

But it is the trials announced on Thursday that should give a real idea of ​​the effectiveness of this vaccine.

They will be carried out with 35,000 people in multiple countries including the United States.

Target for Sanofi: launch at the end of 2021. Already communicated by the group, this schedule would bring its product to the market almost a year after the first vaccines approved against Covid-19.

Among them, vaccines developed in Western countries - by Pfizer / BioNTech, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca in Europe.

Elsewhere in the world, Russian Sputnik V and Chinese Sinovac vaccines play an important role in vaccination campaigns, especially in developing countries.

Test against the South African variant

The late arrival of Sanofi is explained by dysfunctions in the development of its vaccine, which suffered a setback of several months.

This setback had sparked controversy in France, where neither public research nor private research have yet succeeded in marketing a nationally produced anti-Covid vaccine.

Since then, the group has continued to ensure that its product will find its place all the same.

"We have adapted the development strategy of our vaccine to take into account the constant evolution of the virus and to anticipate the needs that will emerge after the pandemic", insisted Thomas Triomphe, vice-president of Sanofi, in a press release. aired Thursday.

As such, the group will play on two levels.

First, it will test a form of its updated vaccine against the so-called South African variant of the virus, one of the main new strains that have appeared in recent months.

Then, Sanofi will also assess whether its product works as a booster dose after another vaccine, a way of integrating into vaccination campaigns likely to occur regularly in the face of mutations in the virus.

Like the main vaccines in circulation, with the notable exception of Johnson & Johnson, that of Sanofi will require the injection of two successive doses.

It is also a recombinant protein vaccine, a technology different from the vaccines currently distributed.

This technology is also that used by the American Novavax in its project in its vaccine project.

Sanofi is also working on a second messenger RNA vaccine, like those from Pfizer and Moderna.

But currently, the latter is at a less advanced stage than the recombinant protein project.

Finally, Sanofi has made agreements with other manufacturers - Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and Moderna - to help them bottle their vaccines.

With AFP

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