The French laboratory Sanofi announced today that it will not develop phase 3 trials for its messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19 due to being put on the market too late. However, he declared that he was continuing the trials for his other candidate vaccine with recombinant protein and expressed his willingness to develop other messenger RNA vaccines against other viruses and diseases.
Sanofi waives its messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19
Despite positive intermediate results for phase 1-2 of the trial, the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi announced, this Tuesday, September 28, 2021, that it had stopped the development of its messenger RNA vaccine against Covid-19. Indeed, although the initial data of the trial are positive since they showed a seroconversion (the production of antibodies) in 91% to 100% of the participants, two weeks after the second injection, Sanofi judges that its vaccine would arrive. too late on the market, when a total of 12 billion doses of anti-Covid vaccines will have been produced by the end of the year. The vice-president of the vaccines branch of Sanofi, Thomas Triomphe, declared that he “ there is no public health need for another messenger RNA vaccine “.
On the other hand, Sanofi will not abandon its vaccine project based on a recombinant protein developed with the British company GSK, which is currently the subject of phase 3. Its results are thus still expected before the end of the year.
The group wants to develop messenger RNA vaccines against other viruses and diseases
However, Sanofi has announced that it wants to develop other messenger RNA vaccines against other viruses and diseases as stated by Thomas Triomphe: ” the need is not to create new Covid-19 RNA vaccines, but to equip France and Europe with an arsenal of messenger RNA vaccines for a next pandemic, for new pathologies “. Indeed, while the pharmaceutical group has already launched initial trials for a monovalent vaccine (with a single strain of virus) against seasonal influenza, it also plans to launch clinical trials against influenza using a quadrivalent vaccine.
In addition to the takeover of Translate Bio, Sanofi announced in June that it would devote at least two billion euros by 2025 to research on new RNA vaccines. In addition, Paul Hudson, CEO of Sanofi said a few weeks ago that “ the aim is to unleash the potential of messenger RNA in other strategic areas, such as immunology, oncology [traitement des cancers] and rare diseases, in addition to vaccines “.
