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Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, the French and British pharmaceutical groups, said on Friday that they would delay the launch of their joint COVID-19 vaccine until the end of 2021, after the first trials showed an insufficient response in older patients.
- Shares of Sanofi SAN, -4.00% were down 2.3% in mid trading in Paris, while GSK’s GSK, -0.30% were up slightly.
- The two companies’ chief executives said in a joint release that they were “disappointed” at the result but insisted they were “confident and committed” that they would be able to submit it to regulators in the second half of 2021.
- The European Union had ordered 300 million doses of the vaccine (about a fifth of the total orders it has already signed with developing companies) and the U.K. 60 million.
- CSL CSL, -3.24%, the Australian biotech company, also said on Friday that the vaccine it is developing with the University of Queensland wouldn’t move to Phase 2 trials as planned, because some participants in the initial stage were shown as HIV positive even though they were not infected with the AIDS-related virus.
- Drug company Pfizer PFE, -1.49% and its partner BioNTech 22UA, +1.03%, whose vaccine started being used in the U.K. this week, warned on Thursday that people with a history of allergies should not take the jab, after two health-care workers came down with severe reactions days after being inoculated.
- U.K. drug company AstraZeneca AZN, +0.70% said on Friday it would investigate whether the vaccine it is currently developing with the University of Oxford could possibly be combined with Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine to boost its efficacy.
The outlook: European governments will soon embark on mass COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, once the EU’s drugs regulator approves the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine later this year, following the earlier decision by the equivalent U.K. agency.
Government health officials note that setbacks should be expected, considering the emergency nature of the vaccines’ development, approval and rollout.
What matters most now for political and health authorities is that the first setbacks don’t embolden “antivax” campaigners throughout the region. But in the short term, the main problem of health authorities is that the distribution of vaccines that have been approved isn’t hampered by overwhelming logistics problems.
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