(Adds Sanofi comment)
PARIS, Sept 6 (Reuters) - A coronavirus vaccine that Sanofi
is developing with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline
is likely to be priced at less than 10 euros ($11.80) per shot
if it is approved for use, Sanofi's chief in France said on
Saturday.
"The price is not totally set ... We are assessing
production costs for the coming months ... We will be below 10
euros," Olivier Bogillot told France Inter radio.
Drugmakers and government agencies are racing to come up
with vaccines for the new coronavirus and treatments for
COVID-19, the respiratory diseases it causes which has killed
more than 879,000 worldwide and wrecked economies.
Asked about rival AstraZeneca, which is expected to
price its shot at about 2.50 euros in Europe, Bogillot said:
"The price gap for us can be that we use all our internal
resources, our own researchers, our own research centres.
AstraZeneca outsources part of its production."
A Sanofi spokeswoman said in an emailed statement on Sunday
that a final price would only be decided when the vaccine
reaches its final testing stage.
"We anticipate being able to determine a final price at the
time of our Phase III trials, when we know more about dosing. At
this stage, any figure is imprecise. Less than 10 euros is only
one of the hypotheses we are working on."
Earlier this week, Sanofi and GSK said they had started a
clinical trial of their protein-based coronavirus vaccine
candidate, with the ambition of reaching the final testing
stage, also known as Phase III, by December.
If the results are positive, Sanofi and GSK hope to get the
vaccine approved in the first half of next year.
Sanofi is also working on another coronavirus vaccine
candidate with U.S group Translate Bio that will use
another technology known as messenger RNA.
($1 = 0.8447 euros)
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon; Additional reporting by
Matthias Blamont; Editing by Frances Kerry and Mark Potter)