Sanofi, a French multinational pharmaceutical company, has struck a deal with Johnson and Johnson to help the firm manufacture its Covid-19 vaccine in Europe, Fierce Pharma reported.
This comes as Sanofi, in December, had witnessed a setback after its Covid-19 vaccine failed to induce an immune response in the elderly.
Earlier this year, Sanofi struck a deal with Pfizer-BioNTech to manufacture its 100 million vaccine doses for Europe.
According to the pact between J&J and Sanofi, the French company agreed to provide J&J access to its plant in Marcy l’Etoile, France. Workers at the plant will formulate the J&J vaccine and fill vials, and the site will turn out around 12 million doses per month, Sanofi said.
“The deal demonstrates Sanofi’s ongoing commitment to the collective effort to ending this crisis as quickly as possible,” CEO Paul Hudson said in an official statement.
Recently, J&J completed the massive phase 3 trial of its vaccine and submitted the findings to regulators in the US and Europe.
The company is now looking forward to getting approval from the FDA advisory committee.
Meanwhile, Sanofi also revealed on Monday that it had launched a new clinical trial of its protein-based Covid-19 vaccine candidate. The company aims to reach the final stage by the onset of the second quarter, as per media reports.