Influenza: Messenger RNA has revived vaccine race between laboratories

French, Sanofi, and British, GSK and Seqirus manufacturers, are threatened by the competition of biotech, such as Moderna and Arcturus Therapeutics or Germans Biontech and curevac.

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Haro on the flu! Eclipated by the pandemic in 2020, the winter virus makes a shy return this season. However, it has become, in recent months, the new target to slaughter pharmaceutical laboratories. After supplanting French Sanofi, the German Merck and the British GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the historic caders of the vaccine, in the race to the cure for Cvid-19, the pioneers of the messenger RNA, worn by the success of their technology, tackle that against the flu. And they are determined to dethrone their elders in this juicy market.

The incursion of the biotech of the messenger RNA on this kept hunt, whether they are CVIV-19 champions, the American moderna and the German Biontech, or more confidential laboratories like the American Arcturus Therapeutics, is not entirely new. Biontech has already worked since 2018 as part of a partnership knotted with the American Pfizer. But the arrival on the market, thanks to the Pandemic of Covid-19, the first vaccines in RNA Messenger, restarted the hunt, forcing the bridgeheads of the sector, Sanofi and the British Seqirus and GSK, to accelerate their research in the field, in order to overcome the threat.

The German curevac, which has concluded a collaboration agreement with GSK, in July 2020, has just begun, this month, in Panama, phase I tests of an RNA messenger vaccine against influenza . Sanofi has, for its part, redeemed, in the summer of 2021, for an amount of 2.7 billion euros, the American Translate Bio, a specialist of this new technology, with which he launched the first tests of An influenza vaccine candidate in June. Seqirus should begin, a phase I during the year, for an auto amplified RNA messenger influenza vaccine.

“between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths each year”

This defeated beaten is not anodine. Sanofi, Seqirus and GSK, which today provide most of the influenza vaccines administered each year around the world, are not ready to give up this flourishing market. In 2021, sales of vaccines against seasonal influenza reported 2.6 billion euros in Sanofi, nearly 7% of the turnover of the pharmaceutical laboratory. For his competitor seqirus, they amounted to nearly 1.4 billion euros. A market all the more coveted as demand continues to grow. According to the estimates of the French manufacturer, it could reach, for the influenza, 15 billion euros in 2030.

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/Media reports.