After encouraging first results during phase 2 trials, the main Covid-19 vaccine project developed by the French Sanofi and the British GSK is reaching a new stage. Indeed, the pharmaceutical group announced this Thursday, May 27, 2021, the launch of large-scale trials on humans of its vaccine against Covid-19.
Large-scale human trials of Sanofi vaccine launched
After months of delay, the main Covid-19 vaccine project developed by the French pharmaceutical group Sanofi with the British GSK will be tested on a large scale on humans. Indeed, this is what Sanofi has just announced on Thursday 27 May 2021 in a press release: ” Sanofi and GSK launch international phase 3 study to assess the effectiveness of their vaccine against Covid-19 “. This announcement comes ten days after the announcement of the encouraging results of phase 2 clinical trials. These, carried out on hundreds of people, had shown that the serum did indeed cause the production of antibodies against Covid-19 in most of the participants. of the study.
Phase 3, the last step before authorization and marketing, plans to give a real idea of the effectiveness against Covid-19 of this serum, for which GSK provides the adjuvant. The tests will be carried out on some 35,000 people in multiple countries, including the United States. Clinical trials will also provide an opportunity to assess whether the vaccine is effective against the South African variant and whether it can be used as a booster after another vaccine.
A recombinant protein vaccine expected at the end of the year
The main Covid-19 vaccine project developed by Sanofi and GSK is a recombinant protein vaccine. This is the same technology used for hepatitis B and pertussis vaccines. In addition, it involves injecting a piece of the virus (the envelope protein) in order to trigger an immune response in the recipient.
If the results of the phase 3 clinical trial are favorable, the pharmaceutical group expects approval from the health authorities in the fourth quarter of 2021. In addition, the Sanofi vaccine could be launched almost a year after the first vaccines distributed in the Western world against the coronavirus, those of Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna.
