French COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Gains 40 Million Dose Order

Dynavax Technologies Corporation announced on February 1, 2021, the UK Government exercised its option to order an additional 40 million doses of France-based Valneva SE's SARS-CoV-2 adjuvanted vaccine candidate, VLA2001. This brings the total volume of the Valneva vaccine ordered by the UK Government to 100 million doses. The UK retains options over a further 90 million vaccine doses for delivery between 2023 and 2025.

VLA2001 is a Vero-cell-based, highly purified inactivated vaccine candidate against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19 in humans. VLA2001 consists of inactivated whole virus particles of SARS-CoV-2 with high S-protein density, combined with two adjuvants, alum and CpG 1018.

In September 2020, the companies announced a commercial partnership for the supply of Dynavax's CpG 1018 adjuvant for use in VLA2001 to support Valneva's agreement with the U.K. government to provide up to 190 million doses of VLA2001 over a five-year period.

Thomas Lingelbach, CEO of Valneva, added in a press statement, “We are very pleased to extend our supply commitment to the UK. Assuming success, we believe that our vaccine, which has commenced commercial production at our site in Scotland, can make a major contribution to the UK’s vaccination efforts later this year as well as in 2022. This new development in our partnership underlines the need for our inactivated vaccine approach, and we will continue to work closely with the Vaccines Task Force on execution.”