- The U.S. government has committed to paying as much as $2.1 billion to COVID-19 vaccine partners Sanofi SA (NASDAQ: SNY) and GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK)
The U.S. government has committed to paying as much as $2.1 billion to COVID-19 vaccine partners Sanofi SA (NASDAQ: SNY) and GlaxoSmithKline plc (NYSE: GSK), according to Bloomberg. This is the biggest U.S. investment in fast-tracking coronavirus shots.
The funding — which is part of Operation Warp Speed — will be used to support clinical trials and manufacturing while enabling the U.S. to secure 100 million doses of the shot if it is successful. The U.S. also has an option to receive an additional 500 million doses in the longer term. The vaccine candidate is based on technology that Sanofi uses for making influenza vaccine along with Glaxo’s adjuvants, which enhances immune responses.
The European Commission also said it is lining up as many as 300 million doses of the vaccine from the Sanofi-Glaxo project. The financial details of the contract to supply European Union member states were undisclosed.
Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline are planning to provide a major portion of capacity in 2021 and 2022 to an initiative focused on accelerating development and production worldwide. And the companies are planning to deploy shots equitably around the world.
The development of vaccines is essential for getting the world out of the pandemic that killed over 675,000 people in the last few months. And Sanofi and GSK also signed a similar deal earlier this week with the U.K. government.
Next month, Sanofi is deploying a study that compresses the early and middle stages of clinical tests. And a final-stage study will take place at the end of the year. The companies will be able to seek U.S. regulatory approval in the first half of 2021 upon the results being positive.
