EU in talks with Valneva to secure future vaccine

The European Union said on Tuesday it had concluded exploratory talks with biotech company Valneva to secure millions of doses of any future coronavirus vaccine the French-headquartered firm develops.

The EU's executive arm, the European Commission, is managing vaccine contracts on behalf of the bloc's 27 member countries.

It said on Tuesday that Europe's vaccine portfolio now involves eight companies.

The EU has sealed six vaccine contracts for up to 2 billion doses, with Moderna, AstraZeneca-Oxford, Sanofi-GSK, Janssen Pharmaceutica NV, Pfizer-BioNTech and CureVac, but only the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines have been approved for use so far.

Exploratory talks have also been finalized with Novavax.

Valneva is developing an inactivated virus vaccine, which involves the use of virus particles or bacteria that have been killed and can no longer cause disease.

Most influenza vaccines are developed using this method. It's the only inactivated vaccine in clinical trials against COVID-19 in Europe.

With just the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the EU says it has the capacity to vaccinate 380 million people, more than 80% of its population.

(Image credit: AP)