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PARIS, November 15, 2020 (AFP) – The coronavirus vaccine being developed by Sanofi will not need to be super-cooled and a normal refrigerator will suffice, the French head of the Paris-based pharmaceutical company Olivier Bogillot said Sunday.
His comments came days after US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech announced that their vaccine had shown 90 percent efficacy in preventing Covid-19 infections in ongoing phase 3 trials with more than 40,000. people.
The companies said they expect to supply up to 50 million doses of vaccines globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.
However, Pfizer’s vaccine must be stored at -70 degrees Celsius (-94 degrees Fahrenheit) or else it will crumble, well beyond the capacity of most hospital freezers and much less household appliances. .
Rachel Silverman, a policy fellow at the Center for Global Development, has already warned that maintaining the “ultra-cold chain” of Pfizer vaccine from the factory to the arms of patients is “a huge logistical challenge even in the West.”
“Our vaccine will be like the ‘flu vaccine, you can keep it in your refrigerator,” this avoids the problem, Bogillot told CNews channel.
“This will be an advantage for some countries,” he added.
The Sanofi vaccine, one of many in development, will be available for distribution next June, Bogillot added.
The results of the Phase 2 tests, involving hundreds of people, will be made public in early December, he added. If those results are positive, Phase 3 trials with thousands of people will begin, along with mass production.
Eleven of the vaccines in development have already started phase 3 trials.
The Pfizer vaccine is “a little further along” in the development process, Bogillot said, but “one lab will not be able to deliver doses for the entire planet.” “We will need to have several winners at the end of this race.”
The Sanofi product will also be available at an “affordable” price, he said, without giving details.
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