As Europe fights vaccine shortages, the UK has begun manufacturing up to 60 million doses of a new COVID vaccine on its lawn.
French biotechnology company Valneva will begin producing its COVID experimental feature at a plant in Livingston, Scotland, before testing and regulatory approval, the government announced on Thursday.
“By starting manufacturing, we will start developing them as soon as possible to protect the British public if it receives regulatory approval,” said Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock told TWTR on Twitter
Thursday that the Valneva vaccine “will be another vital tool in our fight against the virus if approved.”
The news comes as the European Union faces growing pressure on the speed of its inoculation program, which has been made worse by pharmaceutical companies AstraZeneca UK: AZN
and Pfizer PFE
both announce delays in the delivery of their vaccines due to production problems at European plants.
German Health Minister Jens Spahn said the country is likely to face vaccine shortages by April, as he called for a vaccination summit that would include pharmaceutical companies, manufacturers and politicians to look for. ways to speed up deployment on the blog.
“We will still have at least ten difficult weeks in short supply,” he said in one tweet Thursday.
His comments come when the German vaccine committee only recommended using the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine in those between the ages of 18 and 64, according to wiring service reports.
Meanwhile, Madrid health authorities said on Wednesday that they have suspended vaccines against COVID this week and next, as they run out of shots.
“Unfortunately, as we suspected the pace of deliveries was disrupted,” Madrid regional vice-president Ignacio Aguado told reporters, adding that the region has vaccinated 180,000 people since the campaign began.
By contrast, more than 7.1 million people across the UK have now had at least one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which has been developed with Oxford University, or the shot fired by German biotechnology BioNTech XE: 22UA
and its American partner Pfizer UK: 0Q1N.
The government, which has set a goal of inoculating 15 million more vulnerable citizens in mid-February, has ensured early access to 367 million doses of seven vaccines, including one made by Modern American Biotechnology MRNA.
The EU, which signed an agreement with AstraZeneca AZN
in August, for 300 million doses, with an option for 100 million more, now demands the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company to divert supplies of its COVID-19 vaccine from British plants to address the shortage .
Read: EU demands access to UK-made AstraZeneca vaccines as the queue intensifies due to shortages
The two sides met on Wednesday afternoon, during which Pascal Soriot, chief executive of AstraZeneca, pledged to work with the EU to resolve the issue.
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“We are committed to even closer coordination to jointly chart a path for the delivery of our vaccine over the coming months as we continue our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of non-profit Europeans during the pandemic.”
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“We held a constructive and open conversation about the complexity of increasing our vaccine production and the challenges we have encountered,” an AstraZeneca spokesman said. “We are committed to even closer coordination to jointly chart a path for the delivery of our vaccine over the coming months as we continue our efforts to bring this vaccine to millions of non-profit Europeans during the pandemic.”
EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said on Wednesday afternoon that the 27-member bloc lamented the continued “lack of clarity” on the delivery schedule.
Emergency clearance for the AstraZeneca-Oxford dam is expected to be granted on Friday.
Shares of AstraZeneca fell 1.74% in London operations on Thursday morning.
The meeting between the EU and AstraZeneca took place a few hours after the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi FR: SAN
said it will team up with BioNTech UK: 0A3M
and Pfizer will manufacture up to 125 million doses of its COVID feature.
Valneva is developing an inactivated, antivirus vaccine, a more traditional approach than BioNTech BNTX
and Pfizer, which uses the method called messenger RNA, or mRNA, which sends a message to cells telling them that they create proteins that can generate an immune response.
Read: The new candidate for the COVID-19 vaccine, Valneva, is starting clinical trials
The French company’s vaccine candidate is currently in phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials, with 150 volunteers in locations in Bristol, Birmingham, Southampton and Newcastle, to assess the safety of the experimental shot and whether it has produced an immune response. adults without.
If successful, Valneva will conduct a larger study in April 2021, with more than 4,000 volunteers testing two doses of the vaccine in two groups: those aged 18 to 65 and those over 65. The vaccine candidate could be available in the fourth quarter of 2021.
“We believe that our vaccine, assuming successful development, can make an important contribution to the UK and beyond,” Thomas Lingelbach, CEO of Valneva, said on Thursday.