Alistair
Smout JULY 5, 2020 / 2:11 AM
LONDON (Reuters) -
Britain is close to a 500 million pound ($624 million) supply deal with Sanofi
and GlaxoSmithKline for 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 vaccine, the
Sunday Times reported.
FILE PHOTO: A small bottle labeled with a "Vaccine"
sticker is held near a medical syringe in front of displayed "Coronavirus
COVID-19" words in this illustration taken April 10, 2020. REUTERS/Dado
Ruvic/
Clinical trials are
due to start in September and Sanofi has said it expects to get approval by the
first half of next year, sooner than previously anticipated.
More than 100 vaccines
are being developed and tested around the world to stop the COVID-19 pandemic
and governments are racing to secure supplies of vaccines even before their
efficacy is proven.
A supply agreement
with Sanofi and GSK would be Britain’s second such deal, after it said it would
buy 100 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.
Sanofi was not
immediately available to comment, while a spokesman for GSK declined to
comment. Both have both said they are prioritising quality over speed in
developing a vaccine.
“The Government’s
Vaccines Task Force is actively engaging with a wide range of companies both in
the UK and abroad to negotiate access to vaccines,” a spokeswoman for Britain’s
business ministry, said, without confirming if Sanofi or GSK were among them.
The Sunday Times
report said that Britain was considering taking an option to buy the vaccine
should it work in human trials, and would see the amount paid in stages.
Sanofi is working on
two possible COVID-19 vaccines, one of which uses an adjuvant made by GSK to
potentially boost its efficacy, and has said it has capacity to produce up to 1
billion doses a year.
Its timeline for
clinical trials is behind the likes of Moderna Inc, the University of Oxford in
collaboration with AstraZeneca Plc, and an alliance of BioNTech and Pfizer Inc,
whose projects all grabbed headlines by moving to human trials as early as
March.
Sanofi has received
financial backing from the United States and caused a stir in its home base of
France after its British CEO Paul Hudson signalled that Europe was being too
slow in supporting work on a vaccine, hinting U.S. patients might get any
vaccine it develops first.
The EU is also seeking
a deal with Sanofi, and has invited Britain to join its efforts to buy vaccines
for the bloc.
Reporting by Alistair Smout in London, additional reporting by
Josephine Mason in London and Michel Rose and Caroline Pailliez in Paris;
Editing by Elaine Hardcastle and Alexander Smith
Our Standards:The Thomson
Reuters Trust Principles.
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