Sanofi to Work on Coronavirus Vaccine
19 February 2020 - 5:22AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland
Drug giant Sanofi SA has entered the race to develop a vaccine
against the new coronavirus, joining a handful of big and small
drug makers, and teams of university researchers, looking for a way
to prevent its spread.
Sanofi said it would revive research into a vaccine against
severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, an illness caused by a
related coronavirus. That work, responding to an outbreak in the
early 2000s, was carried out by a small company that Sanofi later
acquired. It was shelved as the SARS epidemic wound down, but will
now serve as the starting point for a vaccine against the new
coronavirus.
There are no vaccines or treatments proven to combat the new
coronavirus. Several small drugmakers, including Moderna Inc.,
Inovio Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Novavax Inc., as well as Johnson
& Johnson, are already publicly trying to develop a vaccine.
Researchers at the University of Queensland in Australia are also
working on a potential vaccine to prevent Covid-19, the disease
caused by the new virus.
Gilead Sciences Inc. is separately investigating whether one of
its experimental antiviral drugs could be effective against the
virus.
Sanofi is a big player in the vaccines business and its
infrastructure, as well as its earlier SARS research, could help it
in its latest effort. The technology it plans to use in the new
vaccine already forms the basis of an approved flu vaccine,
reducing the likelihood of safety stumbles.
The new coronavirus has so far infected more than 72,500 people
and killed more than 1,850, according to the World Health
Organization. The vast majority of those cases, and nearly all the
fatalities, have been in China, where the virus originated.
Sanofi said its efforts are being supported by the U.S.
government's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development
Authority, an office responsible for preparing the nation against
public-health threats like pandemics and bioterrorism. Sanofi,
which has used U.S. funds for its research into a pandemic flu
vaccine, didn't provide financial details of the collaboration.
David Loew, head of vaccines at Sanofi, said a vaccine could be
made widely available, at least for emergency use, in three to four
years. He expects the vaccine to start human testing in a year to
18 months.
That extended time frame explains why some promising vaccines
never get finished. Sanofi started work on a Zika vaccine at the
height of that outbreak but pulled the plug after the threat
retreated and the U.S. government scaled back funding support.
"You don't know if viruses are going to become established [or]
if they'll go away," said John Shiver, head of vaccine research and
development at Sanofi. "Even if it doesn't turn out to be something
that sustains interest, it's worth that effort to go do it."
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 18, 2020 13:07 ET (18:07 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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