Sanofi-GSK coronavirus vaccine won’t be ready until end of 2021
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An experimental Covid-19 vaccine developed by Sanofi and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline showed an insufficient immune response in clinical trial results, the French drug maker said on Friday, a blow to efforts to fight the pandemic.
The two companies said they planned to launch another study next year, hoping to come up with a more effective vaccine by the end of 2021.
The news comes as a disappointment for a crop of vaccines under development that rely on more conventional proven designs as the shot developed by Pfizer and BioNTech using breakthrough technology gets rolled out across Britain.
Friday’s results, Sanofi said, showed “an immune response comparable to patients who recovered from Covid-19 in adults aged 18 to 49 years, but a low immune response in older adults likely due to an insufficient concentration of the antigen”.
Phase III studies were expected to start this month.
Sanofi said it would launch a phase 2b study in February of next year instead after a recent challenge study in non-human primates performed with an improved antigen formulation demonstrated better effects.
“The study will include a proposed comparison with an authorised Covid-19 vaccine,” the company said.