Eyeing at securing up to 60 million doses of its inactivated virus COVID-19 vaccine, the European Commission has concluded exploratory talks with French pharmaceutical company Valneva.
The finalisation of talks with Valneva comes in addition to an already secured broad portfolio of vaccines to be produced in Europe, as the EU Executive has inked deals with US drugmaker Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech, with Swedish-British AstraZeneca along with the University of Oxford, with US company Moderna, while it has also signed contracts with Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi and CureVac, and conducts exploratory talks with Novavax.
Commenting on the announcement, EU’s health chief, Stella Kyriakides said that “With this eighth vaccine, we are adding to our already broad and diversified range of vaccines in our portfolio,” while the Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen said that the move demonstrates “the Commission’s commitment to find a lasting solution to the pandemic.”
Valneva is a European biotechnology company developing an inactivated virus vaccine, the only inactivated vaccine candidate in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe.
