Drug giant Sanofi to spend €400m a year in vaccine push
Sanofi is bidding to keep up in the vaccine race.
French drugmaking giant Sanofi will invest €400m a year in messenger-RNA - or mRNA - technology to give it an edge in treating infectious diseases beyond Covid-19.
The company – which has a large manufacturing presence in Ireland - is bringing together about 400 workers from Massachusetts and France as part of an mRNA “centre of excellence” focused on everything from basic research to manufacturing, it said.
Ordinarily a giant in the vaccines space, Sanofi has struggled to bring a product to market against Covid during the pandemic while upstarts BioNTech and Moderna have already inoculated hundreds of millions of people with their groundbreaking mRNA shots.
“While mRNA won’t be the solution for every infectious disease, its translation into routine prevention could have immense impact for many unmet public health needs,” said Sanofi’s Thomas Triomphe.
“It now becomes a critical new technology in our comprehensive vaccines toolbox, one which could help reinvent health protection in the future,” he said.
Sanofi’s two candidates against Covid - one of which uses mRNA technology - are still undergoing clinical trials.
With the initiative, Sanofi wants to speed up its pipeline of mRNA products being developed with US biotech company Translate Bio.
It aims to make mRNA shots that are more stable at average temperatures and less likely to cause side effects, Jean-Francois Toussaint, head of research and development at Sanofi’s vaccines unit, said.
Sanofi expects at least six mRNA vaccine candidates in clinical trials by 2025.
It is funding the effort by reallocating existing development money.
Sanofi employs more than 800 people in Ireland, with most of them working at its manufacturing campus in Waterford – which makes multiple products and supplies therapies to people in over 70 countries.
Its main products cover consumer healthcare needs, vaccines, and medicines for the likes of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, thrombosis and rare diseases.
Overall, Sanofi employs more than 100,000 people across facilities in 100 countries.
"However, key areas of innovation such as thermostability and tolerability improvements will be critical to unlock the applications of mRNA in routine vaccination against a broader set of infectious diseases and across all ages," Mr Toussaint said.
"The Sanofi mRNA vaccines Center of Excellence aims to lead the field in this next chapter of vaccine innovation,” he said.
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