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PARIS: The French government warned Thursday that it would be “unacceptable” for the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to reserve any Covid-19 vaccine for the United States first, after the company chief said it would prefer the US market.
“For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to this or that country for financial reasons,” Deputy Finance Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher told Sud Radio.
British Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said on Wednesday that if his efforts to find a vaccine were to succeed, it would first supply the US government. USA Because “you’ve invested in taking the risk,” after you expanded a partnership with your company earlier this year.
“This will be because they have invested to try to protect their population and restart their economy,” he told Bloomberg News.
In April, Sanofi teamed up with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline to work on a virus, though trials haven’t even started yet, and any successful treatment would be available by the end of next year at the earliest.
Your project is being funded in part by the Advanced Biomedical Research and Development Authority (BARDA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services. USA
But Hudson’s comments sparked outrage from French health associations, not least because Sanofi has benefited from tens of millions of euros in research credits from the French state in recent years.
Pannier-Runacher said he had immediately contacted the group after comments from Hudson, a British citizen who took over as head of Sanofi last year.
“The head of the French division of Sanofi confirmed to me that a vaccine would be available in all countries and obviously … also for the French, especially since it has production capacity in France,” he said.
