GlaxoSmithKline Partners With Rivals for Covid-19 Vaccine Development

By Mary Anne R. First Posted: Oct 25, 2020 11:24 PM EDT

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC will be teaming up with rivals for the development of a potential COVID-19 vaccine.

GlaxoSmithKline is currently the biggest vaccine maker by sales. The British pharmaceutical firm is creating a COVID-19 antibody drug with a San Francisco upstart, offering rivals a propriety ingredient made to boost a vaccine's power.

Roger Connor, president of Glaxo's vaccines business, said they felt this very unusual situation needed something that GSK had not done before and something they had not seen in the industry before.

A Wall Street Journal report said that Glaxo's collaboration is very unusual because the drugmakers' relationship with one another is usually defined by competition.

Drug making firms race to bring a new kind of therapy to market to work on treatments that can outdo old medicines. Some marketers release several campaigns to boost sales at the expense of rivals.

Meanwhile, Glaxo and eight other pharmaceutical firms issued a joint pledge last month to seek regulatory approvals for their vaccines only after showing that their vaccine is safe and effective in large, final-stage clinical trials.

Roche Holding AG is helping rival Regeneron create an antiviral drug in development. Amgen Inc. will partner with Eli Lilly & Co to create antiviral drugs if regulators authorize the treatments.

Pfizer has dedicated manufacturing capacity to create doses of remdesivir, which is an antiviral drug by its rival Gilead Sciences Inc.

Collaboration of Pharmaceutical Firms

The collaboration of pharmaceutical companies does not stop with helping manufacture the dosage of each other's drugs. Scientists are also helping one another when it comes to research.

Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. scientists also helped in the research of a vaccine in development by BioNTech SE and Pfizer Inc.

Some analysts say the company could reap benefits from selling its adjuvant for COVID-19 shots without affecting its vaccine business.

"There is political capital to be gained from what they're doing, and there may be some financial returns to be had as well," Andrew Baum, a Citigroup Inc. analyst who follows health care, said in a report.

COVID-19 Vaccine

AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson announced that they would resume their paused COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials in the United States.

AstraZeneca's vaccine trial had been suspended in September. Johnson & Johnson vaccine study was postponed earlier this month.

Both companies said they had study volunteers who developed serious health concerns, requiring a review of safety data.

AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine trial had already resumed its studies in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, and Japan.

"The restart of clinical trials across the world is great news as it allows us to continue our efforts to develop this vaccine to help defeat this terrible pandemic," Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca's CEO, said in a The Guardian report.

The clinical trial of the firm includes 30,000 people receiving the COVID-19 vaccine and others a placebo shot.

Johnson & Johnson recently said it was already preparing to continue its vaccine study in the U.S. The company did not disclose the patient's nature of illness but said there was no evidence that the vaccine caused the effect.