Sanofi (SNYNF) and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) intend to make available 200 million doses of their adjuvanted recombinant protein-based COVID-19 vaccine, if approved by regulatory authorities, to the COVAX Facility.
The two companies have now signed a Statement of Intent with Gavi, the legal administrator of the COVAX Facility. This is part of COVAX which is co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and the World Health Organization. Their goal is to accelerate development, production, and fair access to COVID-19 vaccines.
More than 180 countries and economies recently signed onto the COVAX Facility to get timely and cost-effective access to vaccines, say Sanofi and GSK.
Roger Connor, President of GSK Vaccines said: “Since we started working on the development of COVID-19 vaccines, GSK has pledged to make them available to people around the world. We are proud to be working with Sanofi to make this adjuvanted recombinant protein-based vaccine available to the countries signed up to the COVAX Facility as soon as possible – this has the potential to be a significant contribution to the global fight against COVID-19.”
Sanofi and GSK initiated a Phase 1/2 study on September 3 with a total of 440 subjects enrolled, and anticipate first results in early December 2020, to support the initiation of a pivotal Phase 3 study before the end of the year.(See Sanofi stock analysis on TipRanks)
If these data are sufficient for licensure application, the companies plan to request regulatory approval from the first half of 2021. In parallel, they are scaling up manufacturing of the antigen and adjuvant respectively.
GSK says that it does not expect to profit from COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic phase, and will invest any short-term profit in coronavirus related research and long-term pandemic preparedness.
While GSK has a Hold Street consensus, Sanofi shows a slightly more bullish Moderate Buy Street consensus. That’s with 8 recent buy ratings vs 3 hold ratings. Meanwhile the average analyst price target for Sanofi indicates upside potential of 26% lies ahead, with shares currently trading down 2% year-to-date.
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