The European Commission announced on Wednesday 10 November that it had signed its eighth advance purchase contract for Covid-19 vaccines. The contract covers the delivery to the EU in 2022 of 27 million doses of the candidate vaccine VLA2001 developed by the French pharmaceutical company Valneva (see EUROPE 12775/24).
The European Commission also has the option to request, during 2022, the delivery of an additional 33 million doses to be supplied by the company before the end of 2023.
However, deliveries can only begin once Valneva has been granted a market authorisation by the European Medicines Agency.
The latter “is due soon to start “ a rolling review of the VLA2001 data, said Valneva in a statement on Wednesday.
The company, for its part, concluded the Phase III trial of the vaccine last month. At the time, it reported “positive results”, citing in particular the fact that it recorded higher levels of antibody titers than AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 vaccine.
The Commission and Member States said that they decided to support Valneva on the basis of a “sound scientific assessment”, the company’s experience in vaccine development, its production capacity, and the technology that it uses.
VLA2001 is currently the only inactivated, adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine that is in clinical development in Europe. (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)