The Strategist

French Sanofi sets to develop vaccine against Covid-19 coronavirus



02/19/2020 - 08:43



French pharmaceutical company Sanofi has announced that it will develop a vaccine against the Covid-19 coronavirus. At the same time, the company will use its own experience in creating the anti-SARS vaccine; Sanofi expects this to accelerate and facilitate the work.



Paul Sableman via flickr
Paul Sableman via flickr
In this work, the company intends to cooperate with the Office of Advanced Biomedical Research and Development of the US Department of Health.

Sanofi’s Vaccine Development Manager David Loew told The Wall Street Journal that human testing of the vaccine will begin in a year and a half, and it will be available for use in at least emergency cases in three to four years.

So far, no vaccine or drug has been proven effective in the fight against a new type of coronavirus, WSJ notes.

Moderna Inc., Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc., Novavax Inc., as well as Johnson&Johnson, the largest American manufacturer of health products, have already announced start of work on a vaccine against the virus. Such work is carried out by British scientists from Imperial College London, as well as employees of the University of Queensland in Australia.

In turn, the American biopharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences Inc. is exploring possibilities of treating the coronavirus pneumonia with its experimental drug.

source: wsj.com