The UK has signed agreements to buy 90 million doses of vaccines in development to treat COVID-19 by drugmakers including Pfizer Inc, BioNTech SE and Valneva SE.
The British government yesterday said that it has secured access to three different vaccine candidates and it is setting up a program seeking 500,000 volunteers to participate in clinical trials.
Pfizer and BioNTech plan to supply 30 million doses of their vaccine candidate this year and next, the companies said.
Photo: AFP
The companies plan to seek approval as early as October and could produce as many as 100 million doses by the end of this year.
The UK described the order as that alliance’s first binding agreement with any government.
The US has been supporting Pfizer and BioNTech’s efforts through its US$10 billion Operation Warp Speed research program. The vaccine uses a novel technology called messenger RNA (mRNA).
Valneva agreed to supply 60 million doses of a shot that it is developing. The UK previously struck a supply agreement for a vaccine being tested by AstraZeneca PLC with the University of Oxford.
The UK also said that it ordered treatments containing antibodies that neutralize COVID-19 from AstraZeneca.
Valneva, a French drugmaker, would supply a further 40 million doses if its vaccine is found to be safe, effective and suitable, the UK said.
The company is producing the vaccine at a factory in Livingston, Scotland.
Valneva said it expects the government to help fund clinical studies and it is negotiating funding to expand the Livingston facility.
Separately, Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK) said that it would invest ￡130 million (US$163 million) to buy a 10 percent stake in Germany’s CureVac AG, launching a collaboration to develop up to five mRNA-based vaccines with technology already being used by the biotech company to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
CureVac’s existing COVID-19 mRNA and rabies vaccines research programs are not included in the deal, the companies said.
CureVac, based in Tuebingen and backed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, last month said that it would start human trials of an experimental vaccine for treating COVID-19 in the country.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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