The Sanofi logo will be unveiled on August 6, 2019 at the company’s research and production center in Vitry-sur-Seine, France.
Charles Platiau | Reuters
From July, Sanofi will fill and package millions of doses of Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine in an effort to meet the huge demand for shots from the American drugmaker.
The French company will aim to deliver more than 100 million doses of the vaccine from its German plant in Frankfurt this year, CEO Paul Hudson told Le Figaro newspaper on Tuesday.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, like other Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers such as AstraZeneca, are struggling to meet the huge demand for shots that are the best choice to overcome the pandemic.
Last month, Sanofi and the British GlaxoSmithKline said that a co-developed Covid-19 vaccine had shown an inadequate immune response in older people, which delayed the launch until late this year.
The company has since been under pressure to look for ways to help with Covid-19 vaccines devised by other drugmakers as the pandemic escalates again in Europe and elsewhere.
“Since our main vaccine is a few months late, we asked ourselves how we can be of help now,” Hudson said.
Sanofi is also working on another Covid-19 vaccine candidate at the US company Translate Bio that uses mRNA technology, similar to the Pfizer / BioNTech approach. Phase I trials are expected to begin this term.
Hudson confirmed in the interview that Sanofi is still committed to its two vaccination projects.