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Law360 (April 14, 2020, 12:54 PM EDT) -- Sanofi-Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline PLC said Tuesday they are joining forces to develop a vaccine to combat COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.
The pharmaceutical giants will combine their technologies to develop an "adjuvanted" vaccine. Sanofi's S-protein COVID-19 antigen, which is genetically identical to the virus's surface-level proteins, along with GSK's adjuvant technology, will be crucial to the partnership bearing fruit.
Adjuvants are substances injected with antigens to enhance the body's response to antigens, which the immune system fights by making antibodies. Adjuvant systems are formulations of classical adjuvants mixed with immunomodulators that are adapted to the antigen and the target population. GSK has previously used adjuvant systems to develop more effective vaccines for shingles and malaria.
"As the world faces this unprecedented global health crisis, it is clear that no one company can go it alone," Sanofi's CEO Paul Hudson, said in a statement filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. "That is why Sanofi is continuing to complement its expertise and resources with our peers, such as GSK, with the goal to create and supply sufficient quantities of vaccines that will help stop this virus."
Phase one of clinical trials will likely start in the second half of 2020 and, if successful, the vaccine would be ready for widespread use by the second half of 2021, the companies said.
"By combining our science and our technologies, we believe we can help accelerate the global effort to develop a vaccine to protect as many people as possible from COVID-19," GSK CEO Emma Walmsley said in a statement.
Funding for the effort is being provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or BARDA, which funds the manufacturing and production of vaccines and therapeutics.
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which President Donald Trump signed into law on March 27, provides $3.5 billion to BARDA for helping private industry prepare U.S. manufacturing sites to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
"Strategic alliances among vaccine industry leaders are essential to make a coronavirus vaccine available as soon as possible," BARDA Director Rick A. Bright said in a statement. "Development of the adjuvanted recombinant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate holds the potential to lower the vaccine dose to provide vaccine to a greater number of people to end this pandemic, and help the world become better prepared or even prevent future coronavirus outbreaks."
--Editing by Jack Karp.
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