The pharmaceutical companies Sanofi and GSK, which last year stopped developing their own corona vaccine, claim that their experimental booster shot elicits a more potent immune response against variants of the corona virus than those of their competitors. The two companies report this on the basis of research data into the drug.
The injection, the companies say, provides a significant increase in antibodies in adults already vaccinated with mRNA vaccines against multiple variants of the coronavirus compared to the additional doses of competitors Pfizer and BioNTech. Notably, it generated double the number of neutralizing antibodies to omikron BA.1 and BA.2.
A second independent study in 247 people showed that the injection elicited a higher immune response compared to both the Pfizer/BioNTech booster shot and the earlier booster version from Sanofi/GSK, both of which target the parental coronavirus. According to the companies, the new booster shot from Sanofi/GSK produces an immune response of 76.1 percent, compared to 63.2 percent of the booster from Pfizer/BioNTech.
“The coronavirus continues to evolve and the combination of the emergence of new variants and declining immunity is likely to lead to the need for additional booster shots, at least in some populations,” said Thomas Triomphe, vice president of Sanofi’s vaccine arm.