The European Medicines Agency (EMA) gave the green light on Thursday to the booster vaccine against Covid-19 developed by the French laboratory Sanofi and the British GlaxoSmithKline, which gave positive results against the Omicron variant in clinical trials. . The approval of the “new generation” serum by the European regulator is a boost for Sanofi and GSK, which have fallen behind their rivals in the offer of a vaccine.
VidPrevtyn Beta serum could be used as a booster dose in adults previously immunized with injections of mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna, or virus-vectored vaccines made by AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson, the EMA said.
Higher protection against Omicron
“A booster dose of VidPrevtyn Beta should be at least as effective as Comirnaty (from Pfizer) in restoring protection against Covid-19,” the EMA said in a statement. A trial in 162 adults who received the booster dose showed that Sanofi-GSK’s vaccine elicited higher production of antibodies against Omicron’s BA.1 subvariant than Pfizer’s original vaccine, EMA says .
A second study restored immunity in 627 adults who had received other vaccines for their first round of injections. Sanofi and GSK developed the “next generation” vaccine at the same time as they await regulatory approval for their first-generation vaccine.
The laboratory says it is ready for the first shipments
This vaccine combines an antigen developed by Sanofi, which stimulates the production of germ-killing antibodies, with GSK’s adjuvant technology, a substance which reinforces the immune response triggered by a vaccine. The French laboratory said it was ready to start its first shipments of the booster vaccine.
“Today’s approval validates our research to develop a new solution to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Thomas Triomphe, executive vice president for vaccines at Sanofi, said in a statement.