Timetable for Covid vaccine leaps ahead

The French drugs company developing a potential vaccine for Covid-19 with Glaxosmithkline is optimistic of securing approval by the first half of next year, sooner than expected.

Sanofi had indicated previously that its vaccine candidate would be available in the second half of 2021, but John Reed, its global head of research and development, said yesterday that the timetable had been accelerated. ‘‘We are being guided by our dialogue with regulatory authorities,’’ he said.

Sanofi and Glaxo, which is based in west London and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 share index, are two of the world’s biggest vaccine companies. They are also among several groups racing to successfully develop a vaccine.

Glaxo is providing its adjuvant technology to the project and is also collaborating on five other vaccine ventures, including with Clover Biopharmaceuticals, a Chinese company, whose candidate began human clinical trials this month. Adjuvants are added to a vaccine to boost the body’s immune response to produce more antibodies.

A candidate being developed at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford entered human trials in April, and Astrazeneca, Glaxo’s London-listed peer and rival, has been co-ordinating largescale

Clinical trials of the vaccine are due to start in September.

global manufacturing and distribution deals ahead of potential approval.

Paul Hudson, Sanofi’s chief executive, said that speed was not the only important factor and said of other ventures.

‘‘They are using existing work, in many cases done for SARS; it is likely not to be as efficacious and there is no guarantee on supply in large volumes.’’

Hudson, 52, who was speaking at a virtual research and development event hosted by Sanofi suggested that the probability of success for Sanofi was ‘‘higher than anybody else’’.

Clinical trials of the vaccine, which has received support from America’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, are due to start in September. Trials of another Sanofi candidate being developed with Translate Bio, of the US, and using an mRNA technology, are set to begin by the end of the year. Sanofi said that it had the capacity to produce up to a billion doses a year of its recombinant vaccine with Glaxo and that it would be able to supply up to 360 million doses of its mRNA vaccine annually.