“We are no longer in a race for speed. Olivier Bogillot, France president of Sanofi, tries his best to explain the new delay of the French vaccine against Covid-19. After several delays already, the Sanofi laboratory now plans to publish the final results of its clinical trial on its vaccine during the first quarter of 2022, when they were initially expected at the end of 2021.
The group, which is developing this recombinant protein-based vaccine with the British GSK, unveiled interim results deemed positive as a booster dose on Wednesday, but it does not give a precise timetable for its marketing. “We will bring this vaccine next year. If it is for a third dose, it will be a third dose, ”explains Olivier Bogillot. “We can see that the virus is here for a long time. We will have a French vaccine. “
Messenger RNA vaccine dropped in September
A single booster dose of the vaccine candidate from Sanofi and GSK “made it possible to obtain strong immune responses”, argues the laboratory in a press release. The results of this test indeed show a multiplication of the order of 9 to 43 in neutralizing antibodies, regardless of the vaccine received as a primary vaccination. In addition, the global phase 3 trial, in primary vaccination, is continuing, according to the recommendation of the Independent Committee for Surveillance and Data Monitoring, until early 2022, in order to collect more data.
The pharmaceutical juggernaut is expected, while France has so far failed to market a vaccine against Covid-19. After an initial period of 6 months, the group had counted on the final results of the clinical trial at the end of 2021, for marketing in early 2022. Sanofi, one of the world leaders in non-Covid vaccines, has been widely criticized in the face of its competitors Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, which launched their vaccine using messenger RNA technology in December 2020.
But Sanofi opted for a different technology, with a recombinant protein vaccine, which uses the spike protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus as an antigen to help the body recognize the virus. Sanofi was also developing another vaccine, messenger RNA, which it nevertheless decided to abandon at the end of September, judging that it would arrive too late for the pandemic.