Sanofi eyes vaccine approval by early 2021

Sanofi said Tuesday (June 23) it expects to get approval for a potential coronavirus vaccine by the first half of next year - faster than was previously thought.

The French drugmaker is developing the medicine with Britain's GlaxoSmithKline.

In April, they had said the vaccine would be available in the second half of 2021.

Many drugmakers are racing to come up with a safe and effective vaccine that can be produced on a large scale.

Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer all moved to human trials as early as March.

But Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said their rivals were not assured of securing victory - and claimed moving at speed could lead to less effective results.

He said the probability of success for his company is 'higher than anybody else'.

Sanofi is currently working on two vaccine projects.

Clinical trials of the drug developed with GSK are due to start in September.

Sanofi said trials of a separate vaccine should begin around the end of 2020.

The drugmaker said it had capacity to produce up to 1 billion doses a year of the vaccine it is working on with GSK.