The European Union has bought another Covid vaccine: Valneva. Here’s how it works

Is called VLA 2001, better known as Valneva, and is the new vaccine that has entered the European Union portfolio. It will be available from next year and Brussels has just concluded a contract, the eighth in the Covid area, with the French pharmaceutical company for 27 million doses, with an option up to 33 million doses additional for the following year. Figures far from those of Pfizer-Biontech or Moderna – one billion doses for 2022 with an investment of about twenty billion euros – but still very useful to support the massive recall campaign which will come alive from December onwards with the involvement of younger demographic groups. Not to mention, for example in Eastern European countries, the need to significantly increase the very low vaccination coverage that is giving way to the winter wave.

The EU Commission therefore bought a further (but certainly not new) type of vaccine: it is a product a inactivated virus, the only one developed in Europe. There are several others of this kind: they are all Chinese and have shown low protective efficacy. Last September, however, Great Britain had also canceled a 100 million dose contract with the French company (60 blocked last year and 40 this year) because, according to Financial Times, one study found that Valneva was less effective than others for boosters. But it was widespread information when clinical trials were not yet completed. In fact, last October, the company announced that the tests successfully achieved both goals, which is to trigger higher neutralizing antibody titer levels than the AstraZeneca active comparator vaccine, a seroconversion rate of the neutralizing antibody higher than 95%, extensive T cell responses and good tolerability, a statistically significant better profile than the comparator vaccine. However, it does not appear that the results of this trial have yet been published in a scientific journal.

The purchase will obviously be finalized only if the EMA authorizes the vaccine, which in fact uses a traditional technology, the most widespread together with that of recombinant proteins (in the Covid field it is the case of Novavax): whole coronavirus particles are inactivated and rendered harmless, absolutely unable to replicate but still recognizable by the immune system, and are able to trigger the reaction also thanks to the composition of the product with a high density of protein S in combination with two adjuvants, alum and CpG 1018. The vaccine, effective both against the syndrome and against Sars-CoV-2 infection, can be updated to further variants that emerge, and if it is effective with Delta.

“We are grateful to the European Commission – said the CEO on the Valneva website Thomas Lingelbach – for your support and we look forward to helping address the ongoing pandemic. We continue to receive messages from people around the world who are waiting for an inactivated vaccine. We are deeply committed to bringing an alternative vaccine solution to market as quickly as possible and continue to work tirelessly to achieve this. Our phase 3 results confirmed the benefits often associated with inactivated vaccines and we continue to believe that our differentiated vaccine candidate can make an important contribution to the global fight against the Covid-19 pandemic. ” Valneva is preparing the trials for administration to children aged 5 to 12 as well as initiating the ongoing review procedure at EMA. In short, it will take some time before we have it available.

Currently, the vaccines for which the EU Commission has authorized contracts are those of AstraZeneca, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, BioNtech-Pfizer, CureVac, Moderna and Novavax. Not all are ready or have been authorized by the EMA: in this case we are talking about commercial agreements that will materialize only when Novavax and Sanofi-GSK (which in September had abandoned the trials for the mRna vaccine but is continuing for the recombinant protein one) will be authorized. Of all those cited in the EU communiqué, it is unclear why CureVac remains, which has abandoned the experimental path and withdrawn its application for continuous review to EMA.

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