“We are close to the vaccines being licensed” and as soon as they are, Cyprus will receive them immediately, deputy director of the pharmaceutical services Elena Panayiotopoulou said.

Panayiotopoulou said a more traditional vaccine by French company Valneva is expected to get the green light in December this year.

Last week, Valneva announced positive results from the Phase 3 pivotal trial Cov-Compare of its inactivated, adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine candidate, VLA2001.

The pivotal Phase 3, Cov-Compare trial recruited a total of 4,012 participants aged 18 years and older across 26 trial sites in the United Kingdom.

Next week will also see the launch of a review process for MSD’s Covid tablet.

At the same time, the European Medicines Agency (EMA) is assessing Pfizer/BioNTech’s application to extend administration of its Comirnaty vaccine to children between five and 11 while it has also started a rolling evaluation of Evusheld, a combination of two monoclinic antibodies, tixagevimab and cilgavimab, developed by AstraZeneca to prevent Covid in adults.

According to Panayiotopoulou, EMA has started evaluating a licence application for the combination of monoclinic antibodies, Ronapreve, which has been developed by Regeneron and Roche to treat Covid in adults and adolescents over 12 who do not need oxygen treatment but have a high risk of developing serious illness.

Source: Cyprus Mail