UK secures 40M more doses of Valneva vaccine

The U.K. has signed a deal to secure 40 million extra doses of Valneva’s coronavirus vaccine candidate, in addition to the 60 million it had already agreed to buy, the government and the French biotech announced Monday.

The new deal follows a multi-million-pound joint investment in Valneva’s facility in Livingston, West Lothian, by the U.K. in 2020 as part of an in-principle agreement to secure early access. The company said in a statement that the U.K. “retains options over a further 90 million doses for supply between 2023 and 2025.”

Valneva’s vaccine candidate, which is currently in clinical trials and has yet to receive regulatory approval, uses an inactivated whole virus, similar to those developed by China’s Sinopharm and Sinovac and India’s Bharat Biotech. The French biotech said its Phase 1/2 clinical study “is now fully enrolled and is expected to read out within the next three months.”

If it’s approved, 60 million doses could start being delivered by the second half of this year, with the remaining 40 million expected in 2022, the U.K. said in a statement.

“If approved, Valneva’s vaccine will not only help tackle Covid-19 here in the UK, but aid our mission to ensure there is a fair supply of vaccines across the globe,” U.K. Vaccines Minister Nadhim Zahawi said in a statement. “No one is safe till the whole world is safe.”

The news comes as the EU faces growing pressure over the speed of its vaccine rollout, along with significant criticism over its decision to impose a vaccine export restriction in response to production shortfalls announced by pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca.

Valneva announced its partnership with the U.K. government in September 2020. On January 12, it said it was in advanced discussions with the European Commission over the supply of up to 60 million doses to the bloc.