European Commission Purchases 60 Million Inactivated, Adjutant COVID-19 Vaccines

France-based Valneva SE today announced that it had signed an Advance Purchase Agreement (APA) with the European Commission (EC) to supply up to 60 million doses of its inactivated COVID-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001.

Under the terms of the agreement, following a final review of the volumes by each of the European Union (EU) Member States, Valneva expects to deliver 24.3 million doses during the second and third quarters of 2022, subject to the approval of VLA2001 by the European Medicines Agency (EMA).

Additionally, the EC has the option to increase this initial firm purchase order up to a total of 60 million doses, the remainder of which would be delivered in 2023.

VLA2001 is currently the only whole virus, inactivated, adjuvanted vaccine candidate against COVID-19 in clinical trials in Europe.

Franck Grimaud, Chief Business Officer of Valneva, commented in a press release, "I would like to express my thanks to the EC teams and the EU Member States who have placed VLA2001 orders."

"We are looking forward to getting the rolling review with EMA underway now that the rapporteurs have been appointed."

"The latest COVID-19 wave in Europe underlines the need for an alternative vaccine, and we have some vaccine inventory ready to be used as soon as we receive EMA approval. Confirmation of the EC agreement will also allow us to optimize our manufacturing strategy for VLA2001."

VLA2001 may also be suited for boosting, as repeat booster vaccinations have been shown to work well with whole virus inactivated vaccines.

VLA2001 is produced on Valneva's established Vero-cell platform. It consists of inactivated whole virus particles of SARS-CoV-2 with high S-protein density, in combination with two adjuvants, alum and CpG 1018.

This adjuvant combination has consistently induced higher antibody levels in preclinical experiments than alum-only formulations and shown a shift of the immune response towards Th1.

Valneva is a specialty vaccine company located in Saint-Herblain, France, focused on developing and commercializing prophylactic vaccines for infectious diseases with significant unmet medical needs.