As Europe struggles with vaccine shortages, the UK has started producing up to 60 million doses of a new COVID vaccine – at home.
French biotechnology company Valneva will manufacture its experimental COVID shot at a plant in Livingston, Scotland, before trials and regulatory approvals take place, the government announced on Thursday.
“By starting manufacturing, we will start implementing it as soon as possible to protect the British public once it receives approval from the regulation,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock said on Twitter TWTR,
Thursday that the Valneva vaccine will be another important tool in our fight against the virus if approved. ‘
The news comes as the European Union comes under increasing pressure over the speed of its vaccination program, which has been exacerbated by drug companies AstraZeneca AZN,
and Pfizer PFE,
both announce delays in the delivery of their vaccines due to production issues at European plants.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said the country is likely to run out of vaccines until April, as it has called for a vaccination summit involving pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and politicians to find ways to accelerate implementation in the block.
“We will still have at least ten difficult weeks with a deficit,” he said. tweet on Thursday.
His comments come because the German vaccine committee recommends using only the AstraZeneca – Oxford vaccine for those between 18 and 64 years old, according to reports from the service.
Meanwhile, Madrid’s health authorities said on Wednesday that they had suspended COVID vaccinations this week and next year as the shots ran out.
“Unfortunately, because we suspected that the pace of delivery had been interrupted,” Madrid’s deputy regional president Ignacio Aguado told reporters, adding that the region had vaccinated 180,000 people since the campaign began.
In contrast, more than 7.1 million people in the UK now have at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, developed with the University of Oxford, or the survey by German biotechnology BioNTech 22UA,
and its US partner Pfizer 0Q1N,
The government, which set a target of vaccinating 15 million of the most vulnerable citizens by mid-February, gained early access to 367 million doses of seven vaccines, including one made by the US biotechnology Modern MRNA,
The EU, which has signed an agreement with AstraZeneca AZN,
in August for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million more, now demands that the UK-Swedish drug company divert its COVID-19 vaccine from British factories to address the shortage.
Read: The EU is demanding access to the UK-made AstraZeneca vaccine shots as shortcomings increase
The two parties met late on Wednesday, during which AstraZeneca CEO Pascal Soriot undertook to work with the EU to resolve the issue.
‘
“We are committed to even closer coordination to pave the way for the delivery of our vaccine in the coming months as we continue our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of Europeans without any profit during the pandemic.”
”
“We have had a constructive and open discussion about the complexity of scaling up the production of our vaccine and the challenges we have faced,” said an AstraZeneca spokesman. “We have committed ourselves to even closer coordination to pave the way for the delivery of our vaccine in the coming months, as we continue our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of Europeans without any profit during the pandemic.”
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said in a tweet late Wednesday that the 27-member bloc lamented the “continuing lack of clarity” over the delivery schedule.
The AstraZeneca-Oxford shot is expected to be approved for use in the EU on Friday.
Shares in AstraZeneca traded 1.74% in London on Thursday morning.
The meeting between the EU and AstraZeneca took place a few hours after the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi SAN,
said it would partner with BioNTech 0A3M,
and Pfizer to manufacture up to 125 million doses of their COVID shot.
Valneva is developing an inactivated all-virus vaccine, a more traditional approach than that of BioNTech BNTX,
and Pfizer, which uses the so-called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which sends a message to cells to say that they need to create proteins that can generate an immune response.
Read: New COVID-19 vaccine candidate Valneva launches clinical trials
The French company’s vaccine candidate is currently in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical trials, involving 150 volunteers at sites in Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton and Newcastle, to evaluate the safety of the experimental shot and whether it elicits an immune response. are healthy adults.
If successful, Valneva will conduct a larger study in April 2021, with more than 4,000 volunteers testing two doses of the vaccine in two groups: those between 18-65 years and older than 65. The vaccine candidate can then by the fourth quarter of 2021 be available.
“We believe that our vaccine, if we accept that it is successful, can make a huge contribution in the UK and beyond,” Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach said in a statement on Thursday.