In a statement released this Thursday the French group said: "Sanofi and GSK are starting an international phase 3 study to evaluate the efficacy of their candidate vaccine against Covid-19," ten days after announcing encouraging results from the first trials.
The earlier trials - known as phase 2 and carried out on several hundred people - have shown that the vaccine provokes the production of antibodies against the coronavirus in most of the subjects injected.
The phase 2 trial of a COVID-19 vaccine candidate from @GSK and @sanofi has found strong neutralizing antibody responses in all adult age groups.
— Pharmacy Times (@Pharmacy_Times) May 25, 2021
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Hopes to roll out vaccine by end of 2021
However it is the trials announced this Thursday that should give a real idea of the effectiveness of the vaccine against Covid-19 and tests will be carried out on some 35,000 people in multiple countries, including the United States.
If the results of the Phase 3 trials are favourable, Sanofi expects approval in the fourth quarter of 2021 by the major health authorities.
This means that, in the best-case scenario, Sanofi's vaccine will be launched almost a year after the first vaccines were distributed in the Western world against the coronavirus - those from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.
Sanofi's development of a vaccine in 2020 was delayed for several months due to alleged failures within the laboratory, but has repeatedly assured that its product will still find its place in the market.
