The EU has ordered – but the French-British cooperation between Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline has not yet been able to produce an approved corona vaccine. Now a vaccine of the next generation should bring the breakthrough.
According to the company, a booster vaccination developed by the French Sanofi group together with the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has shown a “strong immune response” against different variants of the corona virus in clinical studies. These include the omicron variant, which is spreading particularly quickly, explained Sanofi in Paris.
Among other things, according to the tests, the vaccination would develop 40 times more antibodies against the omicron variant BA.1 than vaccinations based on mRNA technology, Sanofi said in the statement. The French company and GlaxoSmithKline are developing the “next generation” booster vaccine while still awaiting approval for their first-generation Corona vaccine. They rely on a protein-based vaccine.
The next-generation vaccine was well tolerated, it said. The complete study results are to be published in the coming weeks, and Sanofi hopes that the booster will be approved later this year.
The mRNA technology, on the other hand, is used by Biontech/Pfizer and the US manufacturer Moderna, among others, whose vaccines are already on the market worldwide. These companies are also currently working on further vaccines against newly emerging variants of the corona virus.
The EU had already signed contracts with Sanofi/GSK to supply hundreds of millions of vaccine doses. However, the vaccine has not yet reached market maturity.
