GlaxoSmithKline CEO hopeful COVID-19 immunization generally accessible in 2021

GlaxoSmithKline CEO hopeful COVID-19 immunization generally accessible in 2021

Overview

  • Post By : Kumar Jeetendra

  • Source: Reuters

  • Date: 30 Sep,2020

The chief executive of GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest maker of vaccines, said she was convinced that the industry will have the ability to make an immunisation against COVID-19 widely available next year.

“I share the optimism that we’ll have solutions next year. The challenge here is getting into the scale that’s required,” GSK CEO Emma Walmsley said at an online event of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) on Tuesday.

GSK is contributing adjuvants, efficacy boosters which play a very important role in many vaccines, in several development alliances for possible future vaccines against the novel coronavirus that has claimed over a million lives worldwide.

The group’s most advanced project is with French partner Sanofi and the two have said they hope to get approval for their candidate next year.

Walmsley worried the industry’s unprecedented speed of creating an immunisation did not compromise safety because trials were not smaller than usual and regulators and businesses were taking steps in parallel that were previously done consecutively.

“We are condensing timelines that may take ten years into two years. But people should feel very assured the way we do this is (because of ) a completely different level of cooperation with regulators,” the CEO said.

“We’re putting our funds at risk, authorities have placed funds at risk so that we do not restrict the scale, which is really important in a trial for vaccines,” she added.

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