By Francis Ogwo
The Government of France has opposed the plans by pharmaceutical firm Sanofi to give priority to the United States (US) in its supply of COVID-19 vaccine, AFP reports.
This reaction is coming after the company’s chief made the disclosure on Thursday, saying the American market is their preference.
French Deputy Finance Minister, Agnes Pannier-Runacher said, “For us, it would be unacceptable for there to be privileged access to such and such a country for financial reasons,”
The CEO of Sanofi, Paul Hudson, who is a Briton, while defending his decision on America, said if the effort to find a vaccine works out, they would give them first, insisting that they had shown commitment while the pandemic swept across the globe.
He said the US government extended partnership to the manufacturing giant earlier in the year.
“That’s how it will be because they’ve invested to try and protect their population, to restart their economy,” Hudson added while speaking to Bloomberg News.
Earlier in April, Sanofi had partnered with an equally big brand, GlaxoSmithKline, in a project being funded in part by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) of the US Department of Health and Human Services to formulate a vaccine with trials yet to start but expecting a positive result from the treatment to emerge towards the end of 2021.
However, the comment by Hudson did not go down well with the Health associations of France, arguing that Sanofi had gained a lot from France in recent years especially on research credits in the tune of tens of millions of euros.
Pannier-Runacher said she had to quickly reach out to the group after Hudson’s comments.
“The Head of Sanofi’s French division confirmed to me that a vaccine would be available in every country and obviously… to the French as well, not least, because it has a production capacity in France,” she added.
America has over the period, been battling with huge figures of death from the ravaging pandemic.
Reports say, as of May 13, 2020, the number of both confirmed and presumptive positive cases of the COVID-19 disease reported in the United States had hit 1,364,061 with 82,246 deaths reported among the cases.
