LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) - French drugmaker Valneva
hopes its COVID-19 vaccine can start to be used in Britain
between July and September, the company's chief executive was
quoted as saying.
Valneva has agreed to provide Britain with 60 million doses
of its vaccine, compared with 100 million doses of the shot from
AstraZeneca and Oxford University. It is expected to need a
two-dose regimen.
"We are days away from starting the commercial
manufacturing," Thomas Lingelbach told The Mail on Sunday
newspaper.
"We cannot release it without regulatory approval so we're
in a little bit of a Catch-22 situation and there are certainly
scenarios that we are currently discussing with the regulators,"
he added. "But we have already signed up to give priority to the
UK and this is something we're currently working on."
Valneva said in September that its vaccine would be
available for use in Britain in the second half of 2021.
Britain has launched Europe's fastest rollout of COVID-19
vaccines and its foreign minister Dominic Raab said on Sunday
the government hoped to ease some lockdown restrictions in
March.
(Writing by William Schomberg; Editing by Pravin Char)