Giving the U.S. priority access to a Sanofi vaccine against the new coronavirus would be "unacceptable,” a French government minister said.
"For us, it would be unacceptable that there be privileged access for this or that country on a pretext that would be a financial pretext,” Junior Economy Minister Agnes Pannier-Runacher said in an interview Thursday on Sud Radio.
The U.S. will likely be first in line should Sanofi succeed in developing a vaccine because the country was the first to fund the French company’s research, Chief Executive Officer Paul Hudson said this week in an interview with Bloomberg News. The U.S., which expanded a vaccine partnership with the company in February, expects "that if we’ve helped you manufacture the doses at risk, we expect to get the doses first,” Hudson said.