Thread by @DrEricDing

For the first time ever—French drugmaker Sanofi helps a rival—agrees to produce >125 million doses of BioNTech and Pfizer's #COVID19 vaccine for the EU. It will lend its production facilities in a highly unusual collaboration.

Wow, quite a gesture.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

2) The French drugmaker will give BioNTech access to a production facility in Frankfurt, which will start to deliver doses this summer, Sanofi said in a statement Wednesday. Sanofi also did this because their own vaccine hit snafu and won’t be ready anytime soon.

3) Let this sink - France is home to the famed Louis Pasteur institute - what @spignal calls the “spiritual home” of vaccines.

Lots of wounded French 🇫🇷 egos for sure, but glad they were big enough to do this and help the world.

4) Famed french @TheEconomist journalist @spignal goes further — the French think is “seen as symbol of France 🇫🇷 losing ground in global race for knowledge/science”

And he points out many in France had said there’s “no chance of a vaccine within a year, likely 4 years”.

5) French egos aside, why isn’t more pharma companies doing this to collaborate? Why can we just share resources to combat pandemic.

If there is an asteroid ☄️ coming to hit 🌍, we would collaborate. Why can’t we do this for #COVID19 vaccine production?

6) Before we clap for @sanofi too much... they also just fired 400 research scientists.

And they did this AFTER paying a massive dividend to its stock shareholders. sudouest.fr/2021/01/26/san…

7) That said, I admire the graciousness of @sanofi to make another drug maker’s vaccine. But please hire back the 400 researchers you fired @sanofipasteur.