Cancelled contract jab may outperform Astrazeneca’s

A COVID-19 vaccine which the Government cancelled a contract for last month may be better and more effective than the Astrazeneca jab, data suggests.

Valneva said yesterday that its phase three results – which included more than 4,000 people across 26 sites in the UK – show it makes roughly 40 per cent more neutralising antibodies than the Oxford/astrazeneca jab.

The French pharmaceutical company has been developing and testing a vaccine against Covid-19 that uses a traditional method: inactivating the entire coronavirus and inserting it into a person. The pathogen is made harmless but retains its shape and the body’s immune system recognises the invader and produces antibodies to fight it off.

Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, visited Valneva’s Scottish manufacturing site in Livingston in January and Britain had ordered around 100million doses of the vaccine. However, last month the Government cancelled the contract, citing an alleged breach of contract by Valneva related to the supply agreement.

In the study, almost 2,000 participants aged over 30 were given two doses, four weeks apart, of the Valneva jab, and compared with 995 people who were given Astrazeneca. A further 1,040 people were given Valneva only.

All analysis of antibody levels was done at Public Health England laboratories and the number of Covid-19 cases were similar between those given Astrazeneca or Valneva, the firm said, while there were no severe cases of disease. The company also said its vaccine, known as VLA2001, induced broad T-cell responses, a part of the immune system believed to be involved in longterm immunity.

There is as yet no further explanation from the Department of Health as to why the contract was terminated.

Dr Juan Carlos Jaramillo, chief medical officer of Valneva, told reporters: “Regarding the contract, currently we cannot comment further at this stage.

“But with the positive results from our pivotal phase-3 trial, we do believe that VLA2001 will have a validated potential value of our differentiated vaccine candidate within the Covid-19 vaccine landscape.”

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesman said: “We have received the latest interim clinical trial data from Valneva for its vaccines.

“The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency will review the results once it receives the full data from Valneva, as part of the usual regulatory decision-making process.”