Sanofi to help produce 100 million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses
PARIS (Reuters) – Sanofi will fill and pack millions of doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine from July in an effort to help meet the huge demand for the U.S. drugmaker’s shots.
The French company will aim to help supply more than 100 million doses of the vaccine this year from its German plant in Frankfurt, CEO Paul Hudson told Le Figaro newspaper on Tuesday.
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech are, like other COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers such as AstraZeneca, struggling to meet the huge demand for shots that are the world’s best bet for overcoming the pandemic.
Last month, Sanofi and Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline said a COVID-19 vaccine they are jointly developing had showed an insufficient immune response in older people, delaying its launch to late this year.
FILE PHOTO: The logo of Sanofi is seen at the company’s headquarters in Paris, France, April 24, 2020. REUTERS/Charles Platiau/File Photo
The company has been under pressure since to seek ways of helping with COVID-19 vaccines devised by other drugmakers as the pandemic intensifies again in Europe and elsewhere.
“Since our main vaccine is a few months late, we asked ourselves how we could be of assistance now,” Hudson was quoted as saying.
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