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ANDY JACKSON
GSK and Sanofi have put aside the competition to come together to find a Covid-19 vaccine, and they pledge not to benefit from anything they develop, at least in the short term.
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
GSK and Sanofi are collaborating on a vaccine, one of 80 that are being developed by companies and academic institutions around the world.
Seven of them are already in early-stage human clinical trials, squeezing years of research into months.
Dr. Christian Felter, chief of medicine at the gigantic pharmaceutical company Sanofi, said RNZ Now was not the time for competition. “This is a time for collaboration. No company is going to solve this on its own.”
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Michael Nissen, director of scientific affairs and public health at GSK, said they hoped to accomplish in 12-18 months what would generally take 10 years.
“The hope is that human trials will start in the second half of this year and then, if successful, we will have a vaccine for the world’s population in the second half of 2021.”
But it is not a done deal. Dr. Graeme Jarvis, New Zealand’s Executive Director of Medicines, who represents the big pharmaceutical companies here, said that only 6 percent of potential vaccines actually made it to a global vaccination program.
“There is a high risk and a high failure rate, so it is reassuring that we have more than 80 candidates who are working on the development program.”
But first, researchers have to solve a devilishly complex puzzle. Felter of Sanofi explained that scientists begin to search for sugars or proteins on the surface of the virus.
“It takes a long time before you find out which of the dozens, sometimes hundreds of proteins is correct,” he said. “Once you find that out, you have to figure out how to do it, how you can formulate it in such a way that you can inject it into someone and develop a protective immune response.”
Felter said that scientists had an advantage over knowing other viruses. The influenza vaccine was a good basis to work because it had to be regularly reviewed to combat the constantly changing influenza virus
“The platform we are using is already made to be changed, but instead of putting this year’s influenza strain, we are actually putting Covid-19 proteins.”
He said they were also applying their knowledge of SARS, which is another coronavirus, to see what proteins would need to be a component of a vaccine. “By taking those two pieces together, we have been able to give ourselves a massive advantage.”
But GSK’s Nissen said past experience had also highlighted the dangers. SARS research showed that there were potential risks involved in developing these vaccines. “It can lead to an increased immune response, so safety will remain a critical and important piece of the puzzle for a successful vaccine in the future.”
If scientists go that far, then the challenge would be to get enough vaccine to meet global demand.
Felter said Sanofi was preparing manufacturing capacity to produce hundreds of millions of doses
“Obtaining an approved product and passing those tests is just the first challenge. The next challenge is to produce it in sufficient volumes so that we can make sure that everyone who needs it, who are pretty much everyone, can get one.”
With a client base potentially of the world’s population, it would seem like a lucrative proposition, but Jarvis said both GSK and Sanofi have said they won’t make money on the vaccine, at least in the short term.
“The cost of vaccines for the world population will be non-profit (they are not going to get any benefit from these vaccines when they come out during the pandemic.”
GSK’s Nissen said it was a challenge once in a century. “These challenges, yes, are devastating, but they also spur real progress in health and medical innovation.”
This story was originally published on RNZ.co.nz and is republished with permission.
