Promotions of the French company Valneva SE hit 45 percent at the auction in Paris after the UK government terminated a contract with the manufacturer to supply vaccine from coronavirus. Reports about it Bloomberg.
In 2020, the United Kingdom agreed to buy at Valneva SE 100 million doses of the vaccine, but the British government decided to terminate the contract, accusing the company in violating obligations on it. Reasons remain unclear. According to Financial Times, the total cost of the contract was estimated at 1.4 billion euros.
Vaccine, which is at the stage of clinical trials, was tested and was reviewed mainly in the UK. It was assumed that its production would be started in Scotland. “This news has become a real surprise, since the UK helped to finance the development of Valneva and expand production,” said Bryan Garnier Analyst Jean-Jacques Le Four.
Over the past year, Valneva SE shares increased almost four times due to high expectations on its vaccine. It differs from other things that uses the inactivated COVID-19 virus entirely, and not just a spike protein. For this reason, some scientists expected Valneva can better resist different virus strains. “We still see the value of Valneva vaccine in the fight against COVID-19, but its place in the vaccine market is now much less clear,” said the analyst Stifel Max Herrmann.
In the UK, 66.2 percent of the population passed a complete vaccination – more than 43.9 million people. In total, more than 7.22 million cases of coronavirus disease are registered in the country. The number of deaths is 134.2 thousand.