David Loew has assembled a strong business development team which secured seven licensing pacts in 2021 and the Ipsen CEO tells Scrip that this year should see more of the same.

With the approval of Nuvaxovid, the UK and the EU now each have five COVID-19 vaccines at their disposal. Meanwhile, the European Medicines Agency has given an estimated timeline for the approval of candidate vaccines from Valneva and Sanofi Pasteur, and is looking at which therapeutics could be effective against the Omicron variant. Russia says its Sputnik V vaccine has now been granted full regulatory approval there.

The European drugs regulator has given an overview of progress with the assessment of new vaccine candidates, additional and booster vaccines, and the use of vaccines in younger age groups.

Sanofi and GSK are way behind in the COVID-19 vaccine race and the start of a rolling review of Vizprevtyn at the European Medicines Agency is an important step.