The U.S. government’s Operation Warp Speed effort will provide up to $2.1 billion to Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline to fund development and manufacturing of the companies’ experimental Covid-19 vaccine, the companies announced Friday.
As part of the agreement, the companies will provide the U.S. with 100 million doses of the vaccine, which will begin human trials in September. As with other vaccines in development, the Sanofi-GSK vaccine, if effective, may require two doses. The U.S. will have the option to procure up to 500 million doses; the companies say they are gearing up to be able to make 1 billion doses annually.
The Sanofi-GSK vaccine is starting trials behind vaccines of other companies with whom Operation Warp Speed is working, including Moderna — which began a pivotal Phase 3 study aimed at proving its vaccine’s efficacy on Monday — AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, and Novavax. However, it is the only vaccine of the group based on technologies used in approved vaccines: the platform behind Sanofi’s Flublok flu shot, and a compound made by GSK, called an adjuvant, that is used to make vaccines more potent.
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