Canada to secure additional COVID-19 vaccine and treatment candidate supplies

Canada’s Minister of Public Services and Procurement Anita Anand yesterday announced that the government has signed agreements with France’s Sanofi (Euronext: SAN) and UK-based GlaxoSmithKline (LSE: GSK) to secure up to 72 million doses of their COVID-19 adjuvanted recombinant protein-based vaccine candidate.

Both companies have vaccine manufacturing sites in Canada that are contributing to overall global COVID-19 vaccine development, and these plus their global industrial network will play a pivotal role to the production of the COVID-19 vaccine doses for Canada, according to a joint statement from Sanofi and GSK, that noted they are scaling up manufacturing of the antigen and adjuvant, respectively, of their candidate, for which a pivotal Phase III study is expected to be initiated before the end of the year, with the target of producing up to one billion doses in total per year, globally.

Based on recommendations from the COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, Canada is signing agreements with a number of leading pharmaceutical companies to establish a guaranteed supply base of potential vaccine candidates. Agreements have previously been signed with Pfizer (NYSE: PFE), Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX), and negotiations continue for access to other leading vaccine candidates.