February 1, 2021: “Valneva SE, a specialty vaccine company focused on prevention against diseases with major unmet needs reported that the UK Government has exercised its option to order 40 million doses of its inactivated, adjuvanted COVID-19 vaccine candidate for supply in 2022.
This brings the total volume of the Valneva vaccine ordered by UK Government to 100 million doses and the UK Government retains options over a further 90 million doses for supply between 2023 and 2025.
The total value of the 190 million doses, if all options are exercised, is up to €1.4 billion.
Valneva has commenced production in parallel to the ongoing clinical studies in order to optimize the timeline for potential deliveries of the vaccine.
The Phase 1/2 clinical study is now fully enrolled and is expected to read out within the next three months.
Interim Chair of the UK government’s Vaccines Taskforce Clive Dix said, “Valneva’s manufacturing site in Scotland is already up and running, ready to supply their promising vaccine as soon as it has proven to be safe, and effective and is approved by the MHRA.
To best ensure we have enough successful candidates to ensure maximum coverage of the UK population, the Vaccines Taskforce has invested in seven of the most promising vaccines.
The further 40 million doses secured through today’s deal significantly bolsters our portfolio and gives us future flexibility should we need to revaccinate any of the UK population.
I want to thank everyone involved in the development of this vaccine for the hard work that has helped us reach this point and also to pay tribute to those UK citizens who have volunteered to take part in the important clinical trials of this vaccine.”
Thomas Lingelbach, Chief Executive Officer of Valneva added, “We are very pleased to extend our supply commitment to the UK.
Assuming success, we believe that our vaccine, which has commenced commercial production at our site in Scotland, can make a major contribution to the UK’s vaccination efforts later this year as well as in 2022.
This new development in our partnership underlines the need for our inactivated vaccine approach and we will continue to work closely with the Vaccines Task Force on execution.”
Valneva announced its partnership with the UK Government in September 2020 and that it is in advanced discussions with the European Commission, regarding supply of up to 60 million doses, on January 12th 2021.
About the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 Disease
SARS-CoV-2 is a new coronavirus identified in late 2019 and belongs to a family of enveloped RNA viruses that include MERS and SARS, both of which caused serious human infections of the respiratory system.
The virus, which causes a disease named COVID-19, has never before been found in humans.
Since this outbreak was first reported, the virus has caused over 2 million reported deaths globally. It has been declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO).
About VLA2001
VLA2001 is Valneva’s vaccine candidate against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. VLA2001 consists of inactivated whole virus particles of SARS-CoV-2 with high S-protein density, in combination with two adjuvants, alum and CpG 1018.
This adjuvant combination has consistently induced higher antibody levels in preclinical experiments than alum-only formulations and shown a shift of the immune response towards Th1.
VLA2001 is produced on Valneva’s established Vero-cell platform, leveraging the manufacturing technology for Valneva’s licensed Japanese encephalitis vaccine, IXIARO®.
The process, which has already been upscaled to final industrial scale, includes inactivation with BPL to preserve the native structure of the S-protein.
CpG 1018, supplied by Dynavax Technologies Corporation (Nasdaq: DVAX) is a component of the US FDA-approved HEPLISAV-B® vaccine and received positive CHMP on December 10, 2020.
VLA2001 is expected to conform with standard cold chain requirements (2 degrees to 8 degrees Celsius).
About VLA2001-201
VLA2001-201 is the first-in-human Phase 1/2 study evaluating three dose levels of VLA2001 (low, medium, high) for safety, tolerability and immunogenicity in a two-dose schedule with intra muscular vaccinations three weeks apart.
Overall, 150 healthy young adults aged 18 to 55 years have been recruited.
The study, which included an open-label dose-escalation phase, is now fully enrolled and is expected to report initial results in April 2021. VLA2001-201 is conducted in two parts: Part A (Day 1 to Day 36) and Part B (Day 37 to Day 208).
Following an evaluation of Part A data (i.e., data up to Day 36) from the present study, further clinical studies may be initiated.”
https://valneva.com/press-release/valneva-announces-uk-government-exercise-of-option-for-40-million-doses-of-its-inactivated-adjuvanted-covid-19-vaccine/
