On Jul. 20, 2020, Valneva confirmed its participation in the UK government COVID-19 vaccine response program.

Valneva had an agreement in principle with the UK government to provide up to 100 million doses of its SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidate, to be manufactured at its facilities in Livingston, Scotland. As part of its broader COVID-19 response, Valneva planned to further invest in its manufacturing facility in Livingston, Scotland and Solna, Sweden.

On April 22, 2020, Valneva announced that it was developing VLA2001, an inactivated whole virus vaccine candidate against the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. VLA2001 leverages Valneva’s well-established platform for IXIARO^®, its vaccine approved for active immunization for the prevention of Japanese encephalitis. The Company was also collaborating with Dynavax to evaluate the potential use of its CpG 1018 adjuvant as part of the VLA2001 vaccine.  This vaccine was expected to enter clinical studies by the end of 2020 and to potentially reach regulatory approval in the second half of 2021.