No question of giving up. The messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines against Covid-19 marketed by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna may have captured the vast majority of the global market, but Sanofi has not yet completely said its last word on the virus.
The pharmaceutical laboratory announced, Friday May 10, the conclusion of a partnership with the American biotech Novavax with the aim of developing a two-in-one vaccine, “non-mRNA”combining the adjuvanted recombinant protein vaccine against Covid-19 marketed by Novavax with the anti-flu vaccines from Sanofi, an area where the French is today the world’s leading manufacturer. “Levels of hospitalizations due to flu and Covid-19 are now closely linked”, explains Jean-François Toussaint, Sanofi’s global Vaccine R&D manager.
Under the terms of the agreement, Novavax could receive up to 1.2 billion dollars (1.1 billion euros), a windfall for the American company, which has been in difficulty for several months. An initial payment of $500 million by Sanofi, which will also take a minority stake in the biotech’s capital of 4.9%, will be made within ten days. As is customary in the sector, the remaining amount is conditional on the achievement of various stages, including in particular $350 million linked to reaching milestones concerning the future combined flu and Covid vaccine.
Strategic
At the same time, the agreement also provides that Sanofi will market, from 2025, the biotech’s Covid vaccine worldwide (except for several countries in Asia, where Novavax had entered into partnerships). In return, Novavax will receive royalties based on sales. This alliance of two former Covid rivals marks the official end of VidPrevtyn Beta, the anti-Covid vaccine, also with recombinant protein, from Sanofi. “The last doses expired at the end of January, and we withdrew the application for marketing authorization from the World Health Organization “, comments the French laboratory, specifying that this decision “is not related to issues of effectiveness, safety or quality, but simply to the fact that there is sufficient supply of other Covid-19 vaccines around the world, including the vaccine [contre le] Covid-19 from Novavax”.
The choice to stop marketing its “made in France” vaccine to pool efforts on the American vaccine is strategic. Novavax’s product is already authorized by European and American health agencies, while Sanofi’s was not in the United States. However, the latter is currently the largest global market for anti-Covid vaccines, even if sales there are largely dominated by solutions from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna.
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