Sanofi’s trials and attempts at getting new drugs and vaccines against the pandemic onto the market have been some of the hardest hit by COVID-19.
This is according to a new report out by life science analytics firm GlobalData, which says the French Big Pharma has been “impacted by disrupted clinical trials and lagging vaccine development due to COVID-19.”
It combed over the company’s trials and found that, as of late August, six of Sanofi’s clinical trials, which were being conducted in 31 countries, have been disrupted, with most of the disruptions being for mid-to-late-stage trials, and include two pivotal trials.
GlobalData said this will hit its ability to file and potentially see approvals for these medicines.
According to GlobalData’s clinical trials database, six trials have been disrupted due to trial delay or slower enrollment issues, and two phase 3 pivotal trials testing sarilumab for non-COVID-19 indications have been suspended.
The drug, developed with Regeneron as an interleukin-6 receptor, got the FDA nod in 2017 for arthritis, after an initial delay, under the name Kevzara. It had been in tests to assess its worth against COVD-19, but came up short.
“Out of the six clinical trials disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, one is terminated, three are suspended, one trial stopped enrollment, and one is still planned,” the report found.
Johanna Swanson, product manager at GlobalData, said: “Both of Sanofi’s COVID-19 vaccine candidates are lagging in development when compared to others such as Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. However, Sanofi is expecting approvals for its recombinant vaccine in H1 2021 and for its mRNA vaccine in H2 2021.