Britain is close to finalizing a 500 million pound ($624 million) deal with GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi to supply the government with 60 million doses of a potential COVID-19 drug, the Sunday Times reported.
Clinical tests are scheduled to begin in September, and Sanofi disclosed that it expects to be approved by June or July 2021, earlier than initially expected.
Over 100 experimental medications are currently being formulated and tested globally to contain the pandemic and governments are scrambling to get hold of vaccine stocks long before their effectiveness is confirmed.
The agreement for a yet-to-be proven treatment underscores government officials' desperation to secure supply as nations rush to corner up a potential COVID-19 medication.
The United States has acquired most of the globe's supply of remdesivir, an antiviral vaccine produced by the Californian biotech group Gilead Sciences, raising concerns that the US might not cooperate with other nations.
GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi are following a host of others such as the University of Oxford, collaborating with Moderna Inc., AstraZeneca Plc, and China's CanSino Biologics Inc. that have begun conducting clinical trials for their vaccines in humans in the last few months.
Glaxo has yet to comment about specifics of the deal, while Sanofi disclosed that discussions with several nations including the United Kingdom were ongoing. In an email, the British government stated that it is working with several groups to discuss the granting of access to the drugs and that a formal statement would be released when the deals are completed.
According to a report by the Sunday Times, the British government was considering taking an option to acquire the drug if it is proven to effectively work in human tests, and would see the amount paid in stages.
Sanofi is working on two potential COVID-19 treatments, one of which uses an adjuvant produced by GSK to potentially strengthen its effectiveness, and has disclosed that it has the capacity to produce up to a billion doses per year.
The Paris-headquartered Sanofi, and British pharma group Glaxo are looking to engage in research compressing the preliminary and middle phases of clinical trials in September. Sanofi announced in June that it is targeting approval in the first half next year.
Sanofi has been granted financial support by the US, which has raised some eyebrows in its home base of France after its British chief executive officer Paul Hudson signaled that Europe was being too sluggish in supporting a program on a vaccine, hinting that US patients might get any vaccine that it can develop first.
