What will the French vaccines Valneva and Sanofi, scheduled for the end of 2021, be used for?

We waited for them, waited for them, but they have not yet come. Patience, they will be here soon! The French anti-Covid vaccines, developed respectively by the Franco-Austrian firm Valneva and by the giant Sanofi, should enter the market by the end of the year.

The Valneva laboratory announced on Monday that it had started the gradual submission of its request for authorization of its candidate vaccine against Covid-19 to the British health authorities. And hopes “that an initial authorization could be granted to it by the end of 2021”. A schedule also targeted by Sanofi, which wants to launch the marketing of its serum in December.

But with the first injections a year after the arrival of the first anti-Covid vaccines, is there still time to catch the bandwagon? If they receive their marketing authorization within the expected timeframe, will these vaccines be able to find their audience?

Different techniques from the competition

For Valneva as for Sanofi, the time has come for phase 3 clinical trials, the last step before the issuance of a marketing authorization. In addition to being French, the two vaccine candidates share another point in common. Both are based on techniques different from vaccines currently available on the European market. Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have bet on messenger RNA, a technology that many skeptics. And AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson have developed viral vector vaccines, which arouse a great deal of reluctance because of the risks of specific – but extremely rare – thromboses associated with them.

As for Sanofi, we have bet on an “innovative and proven” technology, with a “recombinant protein vaccine candidate. [qui] is based on the same technology as that used for one of its seasonal influenza vaccines, ”indicates the French laboratory. Valneva for its part uses a vaccine developed “on the basis of an inactivated virus. There is currently no vaccine on this basis, so it enriches our portfolio of solutions, ”said the Minister of Industry, Agnès Pannier-Runacher, on Tuesday on BFM Business.

Convince the skeptics

Two vaccine candidates which are therefore based on conventional technologies, and which could convince skeptics of messenger RNA to finally take the leap of vaccination. “There is a part of the population that is a little hesitant about new technologies. The vaccines, that of Sanofi like ours, can perhaps reach a public a little bit refractory ”, indicated Franck Grimaud, general manager of Valneva, Tuesday on BFM Business.

To seduce the French skeptics vis-à-vis messenger RNA? Sanofi denies this: “Don’t wait to get vaccinated! […] Waiting only increases the risk and prolongs the circulation of the virus, “said the president of the French branch of the firm, Olivier Bogillot, in early August, recalling that the Sanofi vaccine” will not arrive for several months “.

Ensure the supply of booster doses

And as soon as their marketing authorization has been issued, the two vaccines could quickly find buyers. Valneva has already signed a contract with the United Kingdom to deliver the serum in the event of a positive test. With the extension of the list of countries embarking on a third dose booster campaign, demand will be there. “When the Valneva vaccine hits the market – and it’s the same with the Sanofi vaccine – the French will have been vaccinated. What interests us is their potential as a reminder for the French, ”confirmed Minister of Industry Agnès Pannier-Runacher.

France, Germany, United Kingdom, United States, Israel, Turkey, Hungary and Sweden are among the countries which have already set up or announced the upcoming launch of a recall campaign, the health authorities s worrying about the decline in immune protection conferred by vaccines over time. In France, residents of nursing homes will thus be able to receive a third dose from September 13, Matignon said on Thursday. In addition, those over 65 and people with comorbidities will be able, from September 1, to resume an appointment to have their third dose, as recommended by the High Authority for Health, said Prime Minister Jean Castex, recalling that ‘it took “a period of about six months between the second and the third dose”.

Meeting global demand

The two future French vaccines could also arrive at the right time to meet global demand by supplying countries which have not yet massively vaccinated their populations. “Around the world, 140 countries have vaccinated at least ten percent of their population, but on our continent only four countries have been able to achieve this goal, due to shocking inequalities in access to vaccines,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday. , Director-General of the WHO, at the opening of a virtual annual meeting of the ministers of health of the African continent.

Especially since unlike messenger RNA vaccines, which require storage at temperatures requiring specific equipment, French vaccine candidates have the advantage of being stored much more easily: between 2 and 8 degrees, i.e. the temperature a classic refrigerator. A valuable asset for deploying vaccination in poorer countries with little infrastructure dedicated to vaccination.