The developers of Russia's Sputnik V vaccine against coronavirus has expressed readiness to share its technology with France's Sanofi and the UK's GSK companies to help them with their vaccine development, the Russian vaccine's official Twitter account said on Friday.
In late November, the Sputnik V developers also offered foreign vaccine producers their help. The Russian Gamaleya research institute suggested that UK pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca try to boost the efficacy of its COVID-19 vaccine, combining it with a shot of Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V.
Sanofi and GSK Put Off Launch of Jointly-Developed Vaccine
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and its UK-based partner, GSK, on Friday announced they had postponed the launch of the jointly developed COVID-19 vaccine candidate due to the unsatisfactory interim results of the first studies phase.
The companies noted in a joint statement that the obstacle to carrying on with the launch of their vaccine project by June 2021, as expected before, was attributed to a low immune response in adults aged over 50, which is "likely due to an insufficient concentration of the antigen," a discovery showed by "phase 1/2 study" interim results reflecting 18-49-year age groups.
"We care greatly about public health which is why we are disappointed by the delay announced today, but all our decisions are and will always be driven by science and data. We have identified the path forward and remain confident and committed to bringing a safe and efficacious COVID-19 vaccine. Following these results and the latest encouraging new preclinical data, we will now work to further optimise our candidate to achieve this goal", Thomas Triomphe, Executive Vice President and Head of Sanofi Pasteur said.
The partners said that they planned to initiate a Phase 2b study "with an improved antigen formulation" in February 2021 to reach a high-level immune response among all age groups.
Given the roadmap is completed successfully, the companies envision their COVID-19 vaccine to be available on the market in late 2021.
The companies said that 440 healthy adults across 10 investigational sites in the US participated in the phase 1/2 clinical study for the vaccine.
The Sanofi-GSK vaccine candidate is a combined product of the recombinant protein-based technology used by Sanofi for an influenza vaccine, and GSK’s established pandemic adjuvant technology. The clinical studies for the candidate began in early September.
