Pharmaceutical companies GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and Sanofi said they were going back to the drawing board on Friday after their vaccine candidate had an insufficient immune response in older people. Glaxo’s shares were unmoved at £14.2 while Sanofi’s shares were down 3% to €79.5.
Roger Connor, president of GSK Vaccines said, ‘our aim now is to work closely with our partner to develop this vaccine, with an improved antigen formulation, for it to make a meaningful contribution to preventing COVID-19.’
A total of 440 healthy people participated in the study across 10 sites in the US and received one or two doses of the vaccine or placebo 21 days apart.
THREE MONTH DELAY
The two companies now plan a new study starting in February with an improved formulation which will include a comparison with an authorized Covid-19 vaccine.
If the data from the trail are as hoped, a final trial will begin in the second quarter. Positive results from this trial would then lead to regulatory submissions in the second half of 2021, delaying the vaccine’s potential availability from midyear to the final quarter.
The vaccine candidate was selected in July 2020 by the US government’s Warp Speed programme in order to accelerate its development and manufacturing.
Glaxo is collaborating with several organisations working on promising vaccine candidates by providing access to its technology which accelerates the body’s immune response to vaccines. It may also reduce the amount of vaccine protein required per dose, allowing more doses to be produced.
Medicago and Clover Biopharmaceuticals are using the technology and are progressing into late stage clinical trials.
