BARDA grants $43.2 million to Sanofi Pasteur for Zika

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines unit of French pharma major Sanofi (Euronext: SAN), is to receive $43.2 million from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), to develop a Zika virus vaccine.

Under the contract through June 2022, ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) is providing funding and technical assistance to support the advanced development of an inactivated vaccine candidate to prevent the Zika virus infection and associated devastating birth defects.

The development of this vaccine has been started at the US Department of Defense’s Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR).