Valneva COVID-19 vaccine gets first regulatory approval

The COVID-19 vaccine developed by French company Valneva (Euronext: VLA) has today been granted regulatory approval by the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).

The UK’s independent medicines regulator is the first in the world to approve the Valneva vaccine which becomes the sixth COVID-19 vaccine to be granted an MHRA authorization, with the news sending the firm’s shares up 14.5% to 17.48 euros by early afternoon trading.

It is also the first, whole-virus inactivated COVID-19 vaccine to gain regulatory approval in the UK. With this type of vaccine, the virus is grown in a lab and then made completely inactive so that it cannot infect cells or replicate in the body but can still trigger an immune response to the COVID-19 virus. This process is widely used already in the production of flu and polio vaccines.