Researchers at the Pasteur Institute have abandoned their main candidate for a COVID-19 vaccine.
CHRISTOPHE ARCHAMBAULT / AFP / GETTY IMAGES
By Tania Rabesandratana
On January 25, as the third wave of the French pandemic gathered its strength, Christophe d’Enfert, scientific director of the Pasteur Institute, appeared on national television with a grim duty: explaining how the venerable institute, named after vaccine pioneer Louis Pasteur has given up the most advanced candidate for the COVID-19 vaccine. At the same time, the French drug giant, Sanofi, said its own suitors had been delayed – and that it would reduce hundreds of French jobs. Today, France remains the only nation on the UN Security Council without a viable vaccine. For Enfert, “it calls into question our ability not only to do high-level fundamental research, but also to turn it into innovation.”
High-profile failures have shown an emphasis on the problems facing biomedicine in France. Although a failure could not have been predicted, the model “is not just bad luck”, says Audrey Vézian, sociologist of biomedicine at CNRS, the national research center in France, in Lyon. “It shows that something is not working in our innovation process.” Some experts cite a reduction in basic research funding and limited venture capital. Vézian also accuses a proliferation of bureaucratic organizations that waste resources and adds confusion.
Margaret Kyle, an economist at the ParisTech Mines graduate school who co-authored a January study by the Council for Economic Analysis (CAE), a government advisory body, says France should be well positioned to do and market biomedical research. Its education system produces talented scientists and has a national health care system that provides data that can be implemented in medical research. But recent analyzes show a picture of the long-term erosion of public biomedical investment. The CAE study found that public spending on biology and health research has declined dramatically since 2011, although it has increased in Germany and the United Kingdom (see chart below).
Bruno Canard, a structural biologist studying coronaviruses at the CNRS in Marseille, felt this direct decline. For example, he says, France has only three of the cryo-electron microscopes (cryo-EM) that can reveal molecular structures such as coronavirus at an almost atomic resolution; Germany and the United Kingdom each have about two dozen. The French national research funding agency, set up in 2005 to provide competitive project-based funding, has also seen its budgets fall sharply. COVID-19 emergency research money began to flow, which Canard says has brought his lab’s budget back to 2003 levels. But by the time pandemic funding became available, he said, “Chinese teams, among others, published already the first cri-EM works in Science, Cell, and The nature. ”
Biotechnology startups, critical of pharmaceutical innovation, are also less well funded in France than in their European counterparts. Financing through the French public investment bank (BPI) and tax cuts can be generous in the early stages of business development, but private financing is too small to allow companies to grow significantly in later stages. In 2020, French healthcare start-ups raised an average of only € 8 million in venture capital, compared to € 12 million in the UK and € 25 million in Germany, according to data compiled by France Biotech.
In the first 5 years after biotechnologist Odile Duvaux co-founded a startup called Xenothera in 2014, she raised 6 million euros to develop the company’s immunotherapies. Things escalated during the pandemic, when BPI gave Xenothera EUR 5.3 million to expand the production of intravenous COVID-19 antibody treatment and test it in studies; since then, the company has raised another 10.3 million euros, and the treatment is being tested in 35 hospitals in France, as well as in five other countries.
A sick budget
Public funding for health research has declined in France – a factor in the country’s slow pace of biomedical innovation.
(GRAPHIC) A. ALLA ET AL., LIFE CYCLE OF PHARMACEUTICAL INNOVATION, THE COUNCIL OF FRANCE ON ECONOMIC ANALYSIS, ADAPTED BY K. FRANKLIN /SCIENCE; (DATA) OECD GOVERNMENT BUDGET ALLOCATIONS FOR R&D
But Duvaux says these amounts are diminished by what American companies are often able to raise. “We run after nickels and coins,” she says. “We need pre-orders. That’s what the US government does; that’s what the British government is doing [French vaccine company] Valneva: buy millions of doses before you know if the products work ”and take the risk. Instead, French leaders tend to be suspicious of or pay attention to biotechnology companies, instead favoring well-established universities and pharmaceutical companies, says Duvaux. But none is as agile as a start, she says, “A rowing boat or an oil tanker can’t go fast.”
French organizations, both public and private, do not have “mixed expertise”: people with experience in both health and biotechnology and finance, law and business, according to a 2017 report by Boston Consulting Group, commissioned of France Biotech. The report blames France’s predilection for elite schools that train generals rather than specialists. French President of Biotechnology Franck Mouthon says administrative burdens and safety procedures, added after health scandals, also weigh on the country’s innovation system. “Money is flowing in France to finance innovation, but we need reforms,” he says. For example, members of ethics committees that examine applications for clinical trials are drawn at random to limit conflicts of interest, but that also means they often lack the relevant expertise, he says.
The changes are taking place. The current administration has committed to reversing what it calls “decades of underinvestment” through a 10-year plan and reform adopted in December 2020. The plan aims to increase research and development spending from 2.2% to 3% of gross domestic product, in line with those in Germany, increasing public spending from EUR 15 billion to EUR 20 billion by 2030. It also intends to make research careers more attractive by raising low wages and creating jobs for young people, a novelty in France. (Some researchers have protested against the law, arguing that budget increases are not enough and that junior jobs are downgraded compared to lifelong employment.)
The change also comes in the world of startups. Mouthon says the pandemic has smoothed communication with health authorities, helping startups get clarity on early regulatory requirements. And last summer, the government persuaded a group of insurance companies and semi-public institutions to promise technological investments in France with 6 billion euros through 33 funds; nine of these funds are dedicated to health.
Many scientists cautiously hope that the COVID-19 wake-up call will bring lasting improvements. At Pasteur, researchers are putting pressure on two other vaccine candidates and other research on COVID-19, in part because of public donations. D’Enfert says the institute is considering starting a production unit, like the one at Oxford University, to make batches of preclinical vaccines at home or to add messenger RNA – the technique behind Moderna and Pfizer vaccines – to its portfolio. research of the institute.
D’Enfert hopes the government will strengthen research funding and give basic science more “power” and “recognition.” “It shouldn’t just be about snapping your fingers and introducing gas into the engine,” he says. “It has to be supported in the long run.”