Vaccine first half of 202123 Jun 2020 10:10
This seems like a more sober, realistic timeframe for a global vaccination programme:
French company expects vaccine approval in first half of 2021
The French drug maker, Sanofi SA, says it expects to get approval for the potential Covid-19 vaccine it is developing with Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline Plc by the first half of next year, faster than previously anticipated.
Sanofi, which is hosting a virtual research and development event, and GSK had said in April that the vaccine, if successful, would be available in the second half of 2021.
“We are being guided by our dialogue with regulatory authorities,” Sanofi research chief John Reed told reporters, when asked about the accelerated time frame.
There are currently no vaccines to prevent the coronavirus that has infected more than nine million people and killed over 469,000 globally, and only a couple of medicines that have demonstrated benefit in hospitalised Covid-19 patients in clinical trials.
Many drugmakers are racing to come up with a safe and effective vaccine that can be produced at large scale. The Sanofi chief executive Paul Hudson said the firsts in the race now were not assured of securing victory, Reuters reports.
“There are companies moving faster, but let us be brutally clear, speed has three downsides,” he said of competition. “They are using existing work, in many cases done for Sars; it is likely not to be as efficacious; and there is no guarantee on supply in large volumes,” Hudson said.
The probability of success for Sanofi is “higher than anybody else,” the CEO said.
I think a timeline of 18 months for ncyt's products at this sort of demand sounds about right, before levelling off after that.
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