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French drugmaker Sanofi says it will help manufacture 125 million doses of the coronavirus vaccine developed by rivals Pfizer and BioNTech, while its own vaccine candidate faces delays
German company BioNTech will initially produce the vaccines at Sanofi’s facilities in Frankfurt, starting this summer, according to a Sanofi statement. The company has not disclosed financial details of the deal.
The French government has pressured Sanofi to use its facilities to help manufacture the vaccines of its competitors, given the high demand and supply problems of the few vaccines already available.
“We are keenly aware that the earlier the vaccine doses are available, the more lives can be saved,” Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in the statement.
Sanofi and its UK partner GlaxoSmithKline will begin a new Phase 2 trial of their COVID-19 vaccine next month, Sanofi said. The two companies said last month that their vaccine would not be ready until the end of 2021, as the vaccine’s effectiveness in the elderly needs to be improved.
The European Union has been widely criticized for its slow deployment of a mass vaccination program. The bloc has approved the use of the vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna, and its regulatory agency was due to review the approval of the vaccine manufactured by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford on Friday.
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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic, https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
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