Sanofi India Shares Surge To All-Time High On COVID-19 Vaccine Announcement

Shares of Sanofi India rose as much as 10.4 percent to its all-time high of Rs 7,961 on BSE. Shares were trading in high volumes on Wednesday after its parent company said that it will be working with GSK to bring out a vaccine for COVID-19 by 2021.

In a joint statement, French company Sanofi and UK's GlaxoSmithKline said they would be collaborating to develop an adjuvanted vaccine for COVID-19 using technology from both companies

These healthcare companies are known as the world's largest vaccine manufactures with vaccines for pneumonia and flu being the most administered ones.

Sanofi said it would contribute its S-protein COVID-19 antigen, which is based on the recombinant DNA technology that has produced an exact genetic match to the proteins found on the surface of the SARS-Cov2 virus. Its DNA sequence encoding this antigen has been combined into the DNA of the baculorvirus expression platform which is the basis of Sanofi's influenza vaccine. GSK will provide its adjuvant technology platform which helps in mass production of dosages with less dose of vaccine proteins.

Through its joint venture, the companies are aiming to get on with Phase 1 of the clinical trial by the second half of 2020 and expect to make the vaccine available by 2021.

The companies also said that global access to the COVID-19 vaccine would be a priority and that they "are committed to making any vaccine that is developed through the collaboration affordable to the public and through mechanisms that offer fair access for people in all countries".

Earlier, Pfizer announced that it had invested in a New York-based company that was developing a vaccine for COVID-19.