Sanofi set for €170 million expansion of vaccine facility
pharmafile | October 12, 2017 | News story | Manufacturing and Production | Sanofi, Sanofi Pasteur, biotech, drugs, influenza, pharma, pharmaceutical
Sanofi has announced that it plans to expand its vaccine manufacturing facility in Val de Reuil, France, with an injection of €170 million to boost production ability.
The facility expansion will see an enlargement of its capacity to produce Sanofi’s Vaxigrip Tetra influenza vaccine. The company began commercialising the current product in 2016 and has seen the market for the product grow worldwide, with it gaining market authorisation in South Korea at the end of August.
The Vaxigrip Tetra is a quadrivalent influenza vaccine, which contains two strains of influenza A and two of the B strain. It is currently sold across 20 different markets in Europe and Sanofi announced that it plans to expand its market globally.
With the influenza virus coming around each year, there is a constant market for Sanofi’s product. Worldwide, there are around 3 to 5 million severe cases of the illness each year, and between 250,000 and 500,000 deaths, as a result.
Sanofi Pasteur’s vaccines account for more than 40% of the world’s influenza vaccine market. The expansion of the site will see the reach of the product grow to be able to cover 70 countries across six different continents worldwide.
“Influenza continues be a major public health problem around the world, causing serious complications, hospitalisations and deaths, mostly for certain high-risk individuals,” said David Loew, Executive Vice President, Sanofi, and Head of Sanofi Pasteur. “As a global leader in flu vaccines, this expansion reinforces Sanofi Pasteur’s ability to tackle this underestimated health challenge.”
The plans will see the expansion completed by 2021, subject to health authority approvals, and it will begin producing vaccines by 2022, as part of the long-term plan for the site. The site on which the expansion will take place currently distributes 900 million vaccine doses each year.
Ben Hargreaves
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