France anger forces Sanofi to alter vaccine stance
CHAIRMAN SAYS CEO MISQUOTED ON US, ANY POTENTIAL VACCINE WILL BE AVAILABLE GLOBALLY
Sanofi will ensure that a potential vaccine against Covid-19, if approved, reaches all regions of the world at the same time, the chairman of the French drugmaker said yesterday.
“There will be no particular advance given to any country,” Serge Weinberg told France 2 television.
“We are organised with several manufacturing units. Some of them are in the United States but even more of them are in Europe and France,” he said.
Sanofi operates 73 industrial locations in 32 countries.
There is no vaccine approved yet against Covid-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus.
The group’s chief executive Paul Hudson said yesterday it was vital that any coronavirus vaccine reach all parts of the world, after angering the French government earlier by saying the United States would get priority access. “The comments of our CEO have been altered. We consider vaccines as a common good,” Weinberg said.
Earlier stand
The French multinational’s chief executive Paul Hudson said on Wednesday that the US would get first dibs because its government was helping to fund its vaccine research.
“The US government has the right to the largest pre-order because it’s invested in taking the risk,” Hudson said. “That’s how it will be because they’ve invested to try and protect their population, to restart their economy,” he said. “I’ve been campaigning in Europe to say the US will get vaccines first.”
His comments drew outrage from officials and health experts, who noted that Parisheadquartered Sanofi has benefited from tens of millions of euros in research credits from the French state in recent years.
“For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons,” France’s deputy finance minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told Sud Radio yesterday.
Pannier-Runacher said she had immediately contacted the group after the comments
from Hudson, a British citizen who took over as Sanofi’s chief last year. “The head of Sanofi’s French division confirmed to me that a vaccine would be available in every country and obviously … to the French as well, not least because it has production capacity in France,” she said.
France’s higher education
minister, Frederique Vidal, said Sanofi’s plan to give the US priority access would be “incomprehensible and disgraceful”.
In April, Sanofi joined forces with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline to work on a vaccine, and any successful treatment would be available toward the end of next year at the earliest.
Funding
Their project is being funded in part by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (Barda) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. It is one of dozens of vaccine projects underway to combat the coronavirus outbreak that originated in China last December.
This month, the European Union spearheaded a global effort to raise about $8 billion for research on coronavirus vaccines, treatment and testing.