Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to everyone. Welcome to the Sanofi Vaccines Investor event, streaming live from the auditorium here in Paris. Thank you for joining and spending the next 3 hours with us to discuss our vaccines business. We have divided the event into parts and have planned for a 15-minute break in between. If you are following us online, you can remain connected to the same Zoom link for both sessions. I would like to start off with 2 housekeeping details. First, you can find all the slides to this event on the investors homepage of the IR section of the website at sanofi.com, and they also have been posted in 2 parts. Second, each part will conclude with a question and answer session. We would expect that you limit your questions to no more than 2.
We aim to take questions from both the auditorium and from those who are following the event live on the webcast. If you do ask a question here in the auditorium, please identify yourself and use a microphone. To participate via the webcast, click the raise hand icon at the bottom of your screen and you will be notified when your line is open to ask a question. At that time, please make sure you unmute your microphone. Now moving to slide two, I would like to remind you that information presented in this call contain forward-looking statements that involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially. I refer you to our Form 20-F document on file with the SEC and also our document for a description of these risk factors.
Let me take you briefly through the agenda for today. Paul Hudson, our Chief Executive Officer, will start with opening remarks followed by Thomas Triomphe, Head of Vaccines Business Unit, who will share the Sanofi vaccine strategy and the roadmap to deliver the guidance up to 2025 and our ambitions up to 2030. Bill Averbeck, Head of Influenza Franchise, and Kimberly Tutwiler, Head of RSV Franchise, will present an overview of their respective franchises and the remarkable protection of our vaccines. This will be followed by the first Q&A session. After a short break, in the second part, we will turn to R&D, starting with mRNA. Frank De Rosa, Head of Research for the mRNA Center of Excellence, will introduce us to his current work, followed by Jean-François Toussaint, Head of Vaccines R&D, and also joined by Thomas Grenier to discuss the strategic priorities and key assets.
We will close the event with a second Q&A session. With that, I like to hand over to Paul.
Great. Okay. Well, thank you, Eva, and thank you to everybody, and thank you for being here in person in Paris. We know that conditions can be difficult in terms of traveling. Thank you for all those that have connected online. I'm delighted to be back on stage and in front of real people. It's been almost two years since the Capital Markets Day that we presented to you back in Boston in 2019, where we shared our long-term vision and our ambition to transform the practice of medicine. Today, we're going to provide you with deep insights into the vaccine business. Starting with slide five, outlining the two phases of our strategy, I am pleased to confirm that we remain ahead of our six-year plan. Our strategy allowed us to make important and clear and decisive choices.
Since then, quarter after quarter, all of the Sanofi teams have relentlessly delivered strong proof points of focus and on growth. This puts us today on a clear trajectory to deliver on our mid-term financial targets and on our future pipeline execution. Our key growth drivers are performing very well. Our confidence in the choices we made is increasing. DUPIXENT sales nearly tripled over the last two years. We are currently annualizing at up to EUR 6 billion, and we've just scratched the surface with this incredible medicine. This medicine will be the cornerstone of our future leadership in immunology. Even during the most challenging times of the pandemic, we have consistently delivered on the development milestones for growth in chronic spontaneous urticaria, in eosinophilic esophagitis, in prurigo nodularis.
We will continue to advance a robust clinical development program, potentially addressing a population of almost half a million U.S. patients. Further adding to the greater than three million patients currently addressable. Today, there is little doubt regarding our greater than EUR 10 billion ambition. The only question I'm constantly asked is when we plan to increase the guidance for this amazing mega brand, and that won't be today. Vaccines will be at the core of our agenda today. We are confident it will remain a resilient and sustainable contributor to our growth and profitability. In addition to that, we're taking clear and bold steps to accelerate our R&D engine even faster. Lastly, our rich and exciting pipeline is gaining significant momentum as we continue to increase our focus on first and best in class science.
The seven positive pivotal readouts of this year so far speak volumes about our progress and make a clear and marked acceleration. nirsevimab, which we believe is the only option for all infant protection against RSV, is a perfect and impactful illustration of our renewed focus on breakthrough science. Moving on to slide seven, I would like to say a few words on our commitment to society. Our ESG ambitions have been fully embedded in our Play to Win strategy. All of the flagship initiatives have the common objective of allowing us to mark where we can and where we are uniquely positioned to do so. That's why all of us at Sanofi are proud to be the main supplier of polio vaccines and to contribute to the global effort for eradicating this disease. We've been involved in this fight from the beginning, 30 years ago.
Whilst major progress has already been made, we will continue until the disease is sustainably eradicated. We are also mindful of our obligation to do all we can to ensure a healthy planet. We are moving forward with initiatives to help improve the environmental footprint of our products, which includes the commitment that all of our vaccines will be blister-free by 2027. As an industry-leading global manufacturer of hundreds of millions of vaccines every year, we have made recyclable, eco-friendly product packaging a priority. Finally, just a couple of weeks ago, we were very pleased to note that the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, published annually by S&P, ranked us second, and we again improved our score from 84 last year to 86 this year. Before I hand over to Thomas, let me share a few words on the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since the onset of the pandemic, our response to the crisis as a company has always been driven by one goal, simply to do the right thing. This purpose-driven mindset will be a critical advantage to help us win in the long term for all of our stakeholders. Today we're focusing on our COVID-19 development efforts on the recombinant baculovirus, a candidate. We believe that our unique technology platform will provide a clinically relevant, meaningful option. The preliminary results we have seen from our booster study are very encouraging. As the data of our booster study keeps maturing, we look forward to seeing the first results from our phase III efficacy study that will form the basis of our regulatory filing. We hope to have the results on both primary vaccination and booster before year-end.
In addition, we are leveraging our worldwide manufacturing capacity and expertise for supplying half a billion doses of three different authorized COVID-19 vaccines over the coming months. Let me take the opportunity to express my gratitude to all of the Sanofi teams and to the leaders who've been relentlessly working on advancing science and providing our contribution to society. What's particularly impressive is that the pandemic has not given us an excuse to slow down. We have consistently delivered against all of the financial and strategic objectives we set for ourselves. A lot was said about what may be at stake for Sanofi vaccines, since we were not one of the two companies having an mRNA COVID vaccine approved. Let's be clear, I don't see a lot of impact to this point.
We may be one or two seasons later with an mRNA-based flu vaccine, if it works, and if it can beat the current standard of care. Beyond that, and this is what we'll talk about today, we only see opportunity. We announced the acquisition of Origimm this morning. They've brought extensive knowledge in the field of skin microbiome and skin immunology. I'm excited about the potential new ground we may be breaking and here combining this with mRNA and our LNP technology. This pandemic has clearly underlined the impact that respiratory viruses can have on human health, and influenza and RSV are simply out there every year. If not now, when is the right time to protect people from it?
If we had to have a silver lining from this pandemic, we would say that it has the potential to transform how we approach population health management. We can do more. In this new world, we are confident that we are perfectly positioned to play an increasingly important part. With that, I will hand over to Thomas to kick us off. Thomas.
Thank you very much. Roughly holding. Yes. Thank you very much, Paul, good morning or good afternoon, everyone. It's my great pleasure to present our vaccines business in more details than ever before. Today, we will share with you how we anticipate the vaccine market will evolve, what it will take to win in that market, and finally, we will open to you the doors of our R&D labs to share with you our very exciting pipeline. Let me start with our strategy to continue to be a growth driver for Sanofi. On the next slide, please. I'm sure all of you are perfectly aware of the Sanofi Play to Win strategy, presented by Paul back in Capital Markets Days 2019. This slide shows you how we implement it in the vaccines division. Focus on growth is clearly our top priority in vaccines.
We work relentlessly on our growth drivers, expanding our flu leadership, preparing the launch of nirsevimab to provide all infant protection against RSV, while continuing to grow year after year our core franchises. What you may still underappreciate, though, is the significant acceleration of our innovation pillar. Over the past few months, we are building at accelerated speed a second generation mRNA platform, we are breaking new ground with innovative targets, addressing key unmet medical needs. Jean-François, our head of vaccines R&D, will describe later today this in more details. Finally, we are also breaking new ground in how we work. We are investing more in digital, including in our factories of the future, we are embracing the speed and the agility of our new Translate Bio colleagues. Let's move on to slide 12.
For today, I went back through the quotes and comments that were made about Sanofi vaccines over the course of this year. Some of you actually may recognize some of those headlines. There were for sure many questions around our flu franchise trajectory and the mRNA platform that we are building. We've also seen commentary on our pipeline competitiveness or even the role that our COVID-19 booster may play. Now I'm sure it won't surprise you that I categorically disagree with these statements. Today, we want to show you the full picture of our business as it stands and share several elements that you may not yet be aware of. Let's get started. Next slide, please. We'll start with COVID-19 right from the bat.
You may remember that we announced in February 2020 our agreement with BARDA to develop an adjuvanted recombinant COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with GSK. By then, we already clearly stated that protein-based designs will be slower off the blocks. Based on what we know now, the platform of choice for any future pandemic is mRNA. Speed wins. In February 2020, nobody knew this. With several COVID-19 vaccines now available, BARDA continued our strong collaboration to still have a protein-based alternative in case it is needed in the future. In return, we took on the challenge to run a late multi-country placebo-controlled phase III trial in a very challenging epidemiologic environment. As said before, we now expect those phase III results in the very coming few weeks. Should those results be positive, what is the role our booster against COVID-19 could play, and by when?
Here again, I want to be very clear. As stated multiple times, this is not a financial play for us. Why? Because pre-orders of the existing vaccines have already been placed for 2022 and 2023 with an abundant supply of more than 25 billion doses of authorized vaccines by mid 2022. Public information, not my estimate, and I surely believe that's completely true. During that pandemic period, our recombinant booster may simply complement that oversupply, starting with the advanced orders from our various partners. Moving forward in 2024 and beyond for the post-pandemic phase, should there still be a need for COVID-19 booster shots post-pandemic? We clearly estimate that the annual total market could be in the vicinity of up to 500 million doses. With a positive phase III readout, our thermostable booster vaccine can certainly serve a good portion of this. Next slide, please.
On slide 14, the second COVID-19 question I often get is about the market potential for a flu/COVID-19 combination vaccine. Better not to wait to have the question. The ability, of course, for such a combo to disrupt the flu market. Nothing new here. There is a very long history of vaccinating people against more than one disease simultaneously. This can either be done by combining vaccines into one single injection, that's a possibility, or by simply administering two injections at the very same time. On the left side of the graph, results from our co-administration study of Fluzone High-Dose with an authorized COVID-19 mRNA vaccine show that the administration of the vaccines at the same time does not deteriorate the strong immune response provided by Fluzone High-Dose. That's a good thing, ensuring seniors receive the maximum protection against influenza.
With this in mind, does a combination vaccine add significant value in this specific case of COVID-19 flu? No. No, because various critical conditions are still not met, and you can see those on the right side of the graph. First, a combination requires immunization schedule to be well aligned. Looking at the strong boosting effect from COVID-19 boosters, we do believe that the duration of protection is going to increase and that it's very unlikely that annual boosters may be required. Instead, we may need booster shots every three or five years, very similarly to what may be needed for seniors against RSV. Second criteria, to have a significant uptake, any combination vaccine will have to prove that it is as effective as the best single vaccines standalone and that the adverse events do not increase.
Otherwise, patients, healthcare practitioners, retailers will prefer the flexibility to choose the best vaccine against any given disease at the most convenient time, especially when these vaccines can be co-administered. For all these reasons, we foresee a limited opportunity for a flu/COVID-19 combination vaccine in the current environment, we do feel very confident about our differentiated flu franchise trajectory. Next slide, please. Moving beyond COVID-19, it is quite important to have in mind the strong end-to-end capabilities that we have established in vaccines. We deliver best-in-class products like our hexavalent combination vaccines that are demonstrating our unique formulation capabilities in the company. We have a comprehensive set of in-house platforms to develop new products. All of those are required to develop a new good vaccine. Once you have an excellent product, you still need another set of skills to succeed, the ones on the right.
Many of those might not be yet applicable to some players. The ability to deliver at scale to contribute to the implementation of large vaccination programs, of course, global commercial reach. Next slide, please. By leveraging on all those skills that you have seen, that we have delivered mid to high single-digit sales growth since 2018. Our three core franchises, influenza, PPH boosters, and meningitis, have been the growth drivers and will remain strong contributors in the future. Now we are very glad to add RSV as our fourth core franchise. All nirsevimab studies, as you know, have read out positively, we are getting ready for our 2023 launch. Kimberly will for sure share her excitement, our excitement about this product and about the impact it will have in terms of public health. Market-wise, on the next slide.
We forecast our core markets to grow significantly. Let me try to put this into perspective. Let's start with flu. We are the leader today. We will be the leader tomorrow, we will continue to lead in that market and grow this market. Some of you may not know that we do forecast the flu market to reach EUR 15 billion by 2030, Sanofi flu vaccines will be the key driver of that market expansion. Beyond flu, to put things in even greater perspective, by 2030, we are going to address vaccine market segments that will total up to EUR 50 billion. On top of RSV, an important new segment that you know very well, we are going to enter the large pneumococcal market, we aim to pioneer new frontiers.
We estimate that those areas will represent EUR 10 billion addressable market by 2030, with EUR 2 billion coming from these new frontiers alone. Next slide, please. mRNA. In June, we announced to you the creation of a dedicated center of excellence for mRNA in order to maximize the speed and the agility of our mRNA development. To invest at scale without deleting our profitability, we made prioritization choices, strong choices, in order to reallocate funds to mRNA. It does not mean that our R&D budget is not going to increase over time. Science first. It does mean that it is not increasing further with the creation of this mRNA center of excellence. Today, we are very pleased to share with you the tremendous progress already made in a very short amount of time. The center of excellence is in place.
We already have 300 employees dedicated to advancing the platform today. Among those employees are key talents from Translate Bio. The vast majority of them have chosen to join the Center of Excellence. The second key achievement is the positive readout of our very first mRNA clinical trial on COVID-19, which acted as a proof of concept, validating our mRNA platform and enabling us to move quickly to new developments. Finally, we will share today the interim results of our first mRNA flu monovalent trial, and we will show you that we are pivoting our platform to modified mRNA in a record time. Continuing to move at pace, today, we are going to introduce 4 new mRNA candidates. Frank DeRosa will elaborate on this further after the first Q&A session. On slide 19, our pipeline. We are building an industry-leading pipeline.
We have not shared much about our future vaccines until now. Today, we are opening the doors to our labs, and you get the very first tour of that exciting pipeline. On this slide, starting on the left, you will see first the three core franchises, flu, meningitis, RSV, where we will continue to enhance our pipeline. In flu, we do aim to expand the Fluzone High-Dose indication to add the younger pediatric segment, where current vaccine efficacy can be further optimized. We are also actively developing the next generation flu vaccines using mRNA platform, but also applying new scientific methods such as machine learning or exploring the addition of new antigens. Stay tuned, more to come in a few seconds on this. In meningitis, we are replacing Menactra, the leading ACWY vaccine, by MenQuadfi, further improved vaccines that has shown a superiority against serotype C.
Our MenB candidate is moving in phase II. We plan to combine MenQuadfi with MenB to deliver our best-in-class MenPenta. In RSV, we are of course, on track to launch the first and best-in-class product for all infant protection against RSV. Kimberly will come back to that very soon. We will complement this with a vaccine to protect toddlers. Finally, we are planning an RSV vaccine for older adults that will ideally be combined with vaccines against other respiratory diseases. Beyond these spaces where we are already leaders, we intend to enter novel markets. That will be the significant source of growth for us moving forward, such as pneumo, for example. In partnership with SK Bioscience, our South Korean partner, we are developing a 21-component PCV vaccine. It will include serotype 9N to address broader invasive pneumococcal disease.
Finally, I'm very excited by the last pillar, our new frontiers. I believe we are breaking new grounds with first-in-class vaccines against Chlamydia and against acne. Chlamydia is a high incidence disease, very often silent and under-treated. It can cause infertility in young women. We do believe our future vaccine can address this infertility. For acne, our R&D team is pioneering a new approach, developing a vaccine to treat a chronic disease associated with infectious pathogens. All these project that you see here will address large unmet needs of large target populations. Jean-François, again, will present later the science behind all of those.
In conclusion, our ambition is to more than double sales by the end of the decade by winning in influenza with superior vaccines, by pursuing expansion in our core growth areas of PPH, meningitis, and boosters, by launching nirsevimab and building the broader RSV franchise in the industry, by entering the pneumococcal market with a competitive new vaccine, and lastly, by delivering new mRNA vaccines to address strong unmet needs. Now let's move on to the flu section, for which I'm very happy to welcome Bill Averbeck, our Global Head of the flu franchise. Over to you, Bill.
Thank you, Thomas. It's always hard to follow Thomas, but it's especially hard for someone that's vertically challenged like me. Let me move these out of the way so you can actually see me today. Hi, everyone. My name is Bill Averbeck, and I'm the Global Head of our flu franchise. I've been here at Sanofi for over 25 years, and I've touched flu in some form or fashion for the vast majority of my career. When you work on something this long, you tend to find catchphrases or little things to get you through the day. One of my favorite is flu is only one letter away from fun.
With that corny analogy, let me get started and tell you why I'm excited to talk to you today about how Sanofi is uniquely positioned to win in flu by focusing on protection beyond flu and designing products specifically designed for the seasonal market. Now, as we look to the future, we project the market to continue to grow at about an 8% compound annual growth rate from 2020 to 2030, about the same pace as it has done in the previous decade. Now, this means the market will reach about EUR 15 billion in 2030, which is more than some have projected. Now, there are two main drivers for this growth. The first is an increase in immunization rates across an increasing and aging population.
Now, keep in mind, the coverage rates for flu vaccines remain well below the WHO goals, and this provides a strong opportunity for growth. Now, the second driver is the continuous conversion to differentiated premium price vaccines such as Fluzone High-Dose and Flublok. In fact, we anticipate these differentiated products will represent the majority of their overall market value in 2030. Now, the question really is: How much of the market will these mRNA vaccines capture? Will they have an immediate uptake? Our answer is no. In fact, we believe the mRNA products will only capture a fraction of this market by 2030. The next question is why. Why is their uptake so limited, especially when they've been so successful against COVID? My short answer is because flu is not COVID.
The reality is that the current mRNA vaccine pandemic profile will significantly limit its uptake across the seasonal flu market. It's going to take a second-generation product to deliver on the required key success factors of a non-pandemic seasonal market. Frank and Jean-François are going to talk to you more later today about our plans for these second-generation mRNA products. What are these key success factors? We believe there are three that are required for this seasonal market. They are protection beyond flu, safety and tolerability, and administration. The first and most important key attribute is protection beyond flu. Products must demonstrate improved efficacy and effectiveness when compared to the standard of care. Consistent, high-quality data across multiple seasons that clearly demonstrates a reduction in hospitalizations is the standard. Providing immunogenicity data alone is just not enough.
Payers and providers are going to continue to demand strong and consistent data across endpoints that matter. Second, safety and tolerability. Products that are administered to hundreds of millions of patients each and every year have to have an excellent safety profile to maintain a high level of patient acceptance. Lastly, administration. The seasonal flu market requires certain elements of administration, such as being fully liquid, being provided in a prefilled syringe, and being stored in a refrigerator. These elements are a must to be successful in this market. One of the reasons why proving protection beyond flu is so vitally important is because the damage this virus causes. Flu is underestimated. Many people believe that flu is just like a cold. Maybe you feel bad a couple days, maybe at worst, you're in bed, but you recover.
The reality is the flu virus can wreak havoc across the major organ systems of the body and drive significant healthcare costs. For example, a person over the age of 40 is eight times more likely to have their first stroke, and even more frightening, 10 times more likely to have their first heart attack within one to three days after a flu infection. For older adults in a nursing home setting, 9% of these patients will never fully regain their level of independence after an episode of flu, which for many is their absolute worst fear. Adults with diabetes may experience a 75% increase in abnormal glycemic events. Finally, children under the age of 14 have an eightfold risk increase for pneumonia following a flu infection. All of these serious and life-altering complications come at a significant cost.
In the U.S. alone, these costs equate to $11 billion in direct and indirect healthcare costs each and every year. Seeing the damage that this virus can cause highlights the need for products to consistently demonstrate they can prevent these complications that we just talked about. In this environment, flu vaccines reporting immunogenicity data alone is simply not enough. Where there's no accepted immune correlate of protection, as is the case for flu, a product must demonstrate protection from the actual disease. In addition, due to the devastating impact that this virus can have on patients and health systems, we believe the minimum standard for measurement of performance is how well a vaccine protects beyond flu, which means consistently demonstrating protection across a range of complications, such as hospitalizations due to cardiovascular events and pneumonia.
This evidence needs to include high-quality studies, such as randomized controlled trials across multiple seasons, always comparing to a standard of care. This will ensure measured and consistent reductions in these costly complications. This is exactly what we have done with Fluzone High-Dose. Our evidence generation efforts to cement Fluzone High-Dose as a superior flu vaccine didn't stop with our landmark efficacy trial, which did prove superior efficacy versus the standard dose vaccine. Fluzone is now the most studied flu vaccine on the planet. It has been studied for over 10 years and across 34 million patients. Let me say that again. This product has been studied for over 10 years.
When you study a product for this long, you sometimes find things you may not have noticed at first, and that's exactly what happened here, because one of the most compelling aspects of this product is the consistency of this data, which is really remarkable when you consider the variability that the flu virus can have. In a recent systematic review, Fluzone High-Dose consistently prevented more hospitalizations than a standard dose vaccine, proving its ability to provide protection beyond flu. In fact, let me highlight a couple of these data points. It demonstrated a nearly 18% reduction in cardiorespiratory hospitalizations and over 27% reduction in pneumonia hospitalizations. These are tremendous reductions on top of what standard dose vaccines provide. In the U.S. alone, across a 10-year period, these reductions equated to over 800,000 medical visits and a half a million cardiorespiratory hospitalizations avoided.
All of that resulting in $4.6 billion saved, and that makes Fluzone High-Dose a highly cost-effective solution. Building this robust data package is really the only way to provide improved protection for these patients. To assume a product that only generates immunogenicity data can mirror Fluzone High-Dose's performance would be a mistake. As you see on the slide, Fluzone High-Dose first showed strong immunogenicity data, then demonstrated superior efficacy as well as consistent improved protection against multiple hospitalization endpoints. This is all compared to a standard dose vaccine. It has checked all of the boxes. Flublok. Flublok is our vaccine built or manufactured with a recombinant technology. It has already shown strong immunogenicity and demonstrated improved efficacy in patients over the age of 50 compared to a standard dose vaccine. We've checked the first two boxes.
We have two large randomized phase IV trials ongoing, both of which have hospitalizations included in their endpoints in hopes of demonstrating protection beyond flu and checking that third box. In contrast, let me highlight two recent examples of flu vaccines outside of our portfolio that reported strong immunogenicity results but later failed to demonstrate efficacy in randomized controlled trials. This slide shows data on FLUAD, manufactured by Seqirus, and GSK's adjuvanted flu vaccine candidate. Both of these products reported strong immunogenicity results showing high antibody levels. However, when they conducted their respective efficacy trials, both products failed their primary endpoint and did not demonstrate efficacy against flu versus their comparator. This is why proving products can prevent actual disease and then proving protection beyond flu is necessary when evaluating performance. These first-generation mRNA flu candidate vaccines are literally at the first step in their journey.
Their first immunogenicity trials are ongoing. None have entered into trials in which efficacy will be measured against the standard of care. We believe in order for these products to be relevant, they will need to show improved efficacy versus the standard of care in randomized controlled trials and then demonstrate a consistent reduction of hospitalizations across multiple seasons. Without this efficacy and effectiveness data, these products will be challenged to be successful. Overall, the key takeaway from this slide, immunogenicity will not prove value in this market. The reason we believe that this data will be needed for strong market adoption is that is exactly what Fluzone High-Dose has taught us. As you see on this slide, the generation of the data had a direct impact on the uptake of Fluzone High-Dose in the U.S. market.
You'll notice in the beginning, we had a modest uptake when we just had immunogenicity data, as payers and providers demanded more proof of performance to move away from their established standard of care. As data such as efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and supportive high-quality real-world evidence became available, the product really started to take off. Its adoption continued to climb, now nearly two out of every three seniors in the U.S. receive Fluzone High-Dose. Generating this robust and consistent data package focused on protection beyond flu is necessary to achieve the first key success factor of the flu market. The second key success factor for flu vaccine is its safety profile. For a product to be used annually, patients and providers demand well-tolerated products, our flu vaccines have demonstrated consistently an excellent safety profile.
You see on the left side of this slide, rates of adverse events seen with Fluzone High-Dose and standard-dose flu vaccines are markedly lower when comparing them to a reaction profile of Moderna's mRNA COVID vaccine. This is in patients over the age of 65. Seeing nearly half report a headache and over 80% reporting pain is just a different product profile than patients are used to experiencing with either high-dose or standard-dose vaccines. The right side of this slide shows results from a co-administration trial involving Fluzone High-Dose and Moderna's COVID vaccine. This study consisted of three arms, one where patients received both Fluzone High-Dose and Moderna at the same time, two arms where each product was given to separate patients to act as controls.
These separate arms allowed us to make a head-to-head comparison of these reaction rates of these products. When you look at the Grade 3 reactions, which are reactions serious enough to interrupt normal activity, Fluzone High-Dose is over 12 times less likely to cause a systemic Grade 3 reaction and three and a half times less likely to cause a local Grade 3 reaction. Patient acceptability is a key factor in a flu immunization program's ability to succeed. To assume that patients would receive a vaccine with a three and a half to 12 times increase in serious reactions every flu season is a bit of a stretch. We speak to our customers every day. We recently conducted market research to confirm our findings. Providers see these higher reaction rates as potential barriers to patients being immunized against flu.
Many of you may be able to relate to this research, as many of you or your family members may have experienced these type of reactions after being immunized with an mRNA COVID vaccine. It's really interesting to hear about folks scheduling their COVID immunization for a time when they could spend 2 or 3 days at home after the appointment for fear of these possible reactions. This scheduling dynamic is truly unique and something we just don't see with flu immunizations. Again, flu is not COVID. Keeping all this in mind, when you consider the three key success factors we initially reviewed, we do not believe that the current first-generation pandemic mRNA profile platform can be successful in the flu market. Significant investments into clinical trial work will be needed for mRNA vaccines to demonstrate improved performance against the standard of care.
Randomized controlled trials establishing efficacy and effectiveness across multiple seasons are what these products will need to demonstrate to be relevant. In addition, as we just highlighted, the current safety profile is simply not good enough to assume patients will be willing to receive a product built on this platform every single year. Patient acceptability is a huge factor in the ability for this market to continue to grow and to achieve those WHO-stated immunization coverage goals. Last, but certainly not least, are the administration hurdles that these first-generation vaccines are facing. For strong adoption in a seasonal flu market, products need to be liquid, they need to be available in a pre-filled syringe, and they need to be stored in a refrigerator for the entire flu season.
If any one of these elements are missing, it impacts immunization programs' ability to effectively deliver a large number of doses in a finite amount of time every single year. For mRNA vaccines to be relevant in this market, they will continue to have to evolve to a second-generation product designed for seasonal routine use versus a pandemic response. This evolution is exactly what we're planning and targeting in our clinical development plans. Overall, we believe we are poised to continue to win in flu. We are actively building next-generation products, investigating multiple factors across multiple technologies designed to deliver solutions for seasonal markets across these key factors that this type of market demands. In the meantime, we will continue to expand Fluzone High-Dose and Flublok, as these products are the only two products that have demonstrated improved efficacy against the standard-dose vaccine in randomized controlled trials.
In addition, Fluzone High-Dose has also achieved a consistent demonstration of protection beyond flu for over a decade. Having a clear path to developing the next-generation mRNA vaccines while continuing to grow our current business gives us the unique ability to win in flu. If these second-generation products can deliver on these seasonal market needs, we will be there. If for some reason they end up missing one or two of these success factors, we will drive our current portfolio and continue to lead this market. Either way, we believe Sanofi will continue to win in flu. Thank you very much. I would like to bring to the stage or welcome to the stage Kimberly Tutwiler, who's the Head of our RSV franchise, and she'll walk you through our RSV strategy. Kimberly.
Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. I'm Kimberly Tutwiler. I lead the global RSV franchise, and I'm very happy to have a few minutes to talk with you today about RSV and nirsevimab. I'm very lucky to have been with Sanofi for the past 20 years in vaccines and very lucky to lead the RSV team. I think a discussion about RSV today is really timely because I think many of you have probably been hearing a lot about RSV in the news, and some of you have either had an experience with RSV or you know someone who has. There are 2 things about RSV that I'd like to prove to you today. The first is that all infants need protection, and the second is that we'll accomplish this for the first time with nirsevimab.
What we all probably know about RSV by now is that it's a significant risk for infants, and it's actually the leading cause of hospitalization in this age group. What's less known is that RSV affects all babies, especially those born at term and in good health. Most people think of RSV as being an issue mostly for premature babies or those that are born with underlying health conditions. The data shows that this just isn't true. What you see on the left side of the slide is a breakdown of the birth cohort and RSV hospitalizations. You can see that 94% of babies born are healthy, full-term infants, and I think we all would have expected that. What most people don't know is that 85% of the RSV hospitalizations that happen are in those healthy full-term babies.
We know that there's a serious unmet medical need, and that's the lack of protection for all infants from RSV. You can see on the right-hand side of the slide that infants represent a significant segment of the total RSV market with a potential value of around EUR 2.5 billion. However, unlocking this value is only possible with a strategy that addresses all infants. That's not possible today, let's look at how that will be possible tomorrow and what's required of a strategy to protect every single infant, and that's what's on this chart. Along the top, what you see are the requirements. First, protection of preterm or at-risk infants. Second, protection of babies regardless of the month that they're born, whether that's during the RSV season, which is November to March, just for reference, like influenza, or if they're born before the season.
Finally, really importantly, duration of protection to last the entire season. When we look at these requirements, a nirsevimab strategy is the only option that protects all infants. It can be given right before the season starts or at birth in existing routine visits, and a single dose will last for the entire season. That ability to protect babies who are born before the season begins is critical. Many people don't realize this, half of the hospitalizations for RSV that occur are in babies who are born before the season begins. A maternal immunization strategy would only protect those babies born in season. That addresses less than half of babies born, also only half the burden of hospitalization. The protection would just not last long enough to get through the season. The easiest way to think about this is to use an example.
Let's take a baby born in April. That baby would need 11 months of protection to get to and through their first RSV season, and that won't be possible with a maternal vaccine. That strategy also requires pregnant women to be vaccinated, and today, no more than half have done so for influenza, for pertussis, or even COVID. The only way to address the unmet need of protecting all infants is with a strategy that delivers protection at the right time, that lasts for the entire season, and leverages the existing pediatric immunization framework. The only strategy that can accomplish all of that is nirsevimab. Now that we know which strategy addresses all infants, let's take a look at how we'll make that a reality. What you see here is the clinical development program for nirsevimab.
Just a reminder, this product is part of an alliance with our partners at AstraZeneca. This program centers on three pivotal studies to support all infant protection. The phase II-B you've seen last year, you may have recently seen the phase III results, and we'll discuss those a bit today. The primary analyses of all these studies are complete. We have some ongoing safety data to be finalized for registration, and that will begin shortly in the first quarter of 2022. The entire goal of this development plan is to support all infant protection. Let's take a look at the results. The key takeaway here, what we're really excited about is that three out of four hospitalizations could be avoided with nirsevimab.
You can see in the data on the left-hand side of the slide where nirsevimab demonstrated a very promising 74.5% reduction in medically attended RSV LRTI. That's from the phase III MELODY study. The secondary endpoint in that study was hospitalization, that's what you see in the middle of the slide with a 62.1% reduction. The phase III study alone was not powered for that secondary endpoint, we knew that, and we planned a pre-specified pooled analysis on hospitalization. That includes subjects from the phase II-B and from the phase III study. In this analysis, we're very excited about this, nirsevimab reduced RSV hospitalizations by 77.3%, three out of four, and that result is very statistically significant. In terms of safety, we see that nirsevimab is safe and well-tolerated. It has a profile like placebo.
The chart you see here is from the phase III MELODY study. Just as a note as you look at it, remember, the ratio of subjects recruited was one to two, placebo versus nirsevimab. Please note the percentages in parentheses if you want to make true comparisons. There are two points here I would emphasize. The first, the types and frequencies of adverse events were similar among nirsevimab and the placebo groups. You can see that in the any adverse events line with placebo at 86.8% and nirsevimab at 87.4%, and the serious adverse event line, placebo at 7.3% and nirsevimab at just 6.8%. The second, really importantly, no serious adverse events or deaths were considered by investigators to be related to nirsevimab.
Now that we know with confidence that nirsevimab is highly effective and safe, we turn our attention to getting it from the clinic and into the market. We're ready for the global launch, beginning with the 2023 season. You can see in this slide that the unmet medical need and the promise of nirsevimab is not only recognized by us, it's also recognized with priority designations from health authorities in the EU, in the U.S., in the U.K., China, and Japan. We expect to begin submissions in 2022, and we anticipate our market introductions beginning in 2023. The big thing you want to know about is what are we doing now? Our pre-launch activities are already underway, and we're actively engaged with our key stakeholders for recommendations and funding, and we expect both in 2023.
What I can tell you is this: There's strong interest and support from stakeholders, both medical and policy, who see the obvious need and the benefit of protecting all infants. That's logical, because protecting all infants aligns with the goals of our key partners. Take the HHS in the U.S. as an example. They have a top priority to address disparities in healthcare. It's clear from our discussions that they recognize anything short of a routine recommendation and funding for all infants could result in a situation in which lower income and potentially minority children would have fewer opportunities for RSV protection. That's not acceptable. That's why all infant recommendations are so important.
To help further support the decision-making for our key stakeholders, we'll run a real-world implementation study in 2022 in Europe, that will bring even more confirmation of the benefit of nirsevimab, particularly on its impact on hospitalizations. Finally, we're very excited to announce our phase III study in China has been initiated just in November. The takeaway from all of this, and the thing to know is we're confident in getting nirsevimab recommended and used in all infants, and we're ready to go in 2023. Partly, that's because of the very exciting data that we see on nirsevimab. Partly, that's because the unmet need is obvious. It's also because of our unparalleled experience in the pediatric market. This is what we do. Our next goal is routine RSV immunization for all infants.
If you haven't been able to tell by now, we are very excited to be the first to deliver all-infant protection for RSV with nirsevimab. With a really promising efficacy of 74.5%, it can deliver rapid protection for the entire season with one single dose. It will also be cost-effective, priced in line with other recent premium price vaccines, that's to enable an all-infant use strategy. If there's one thing that I'd like you to remember today, it's this. It's that nirsevimab is the only strategy that can address the unmet need of protecting every single infant, whether they're pre-term or full-term, whether they're born healthy or with underlying medical conditions, whether they're born in or out of the season. Every single baby needs to be protected against RSV because the truth is there's no way to identify which babies will be at risk. They all are.
Thank you for your time today. I look forward to hearing your questions, and I'd like to welcome Eva to the stage to get us organized for the question and answer session. Thank you.
Thanks. If I could invite our last three presenters actually back on stage, Thomas Triomphe, Bill Averbeck, Kimberly Tutwiler. We're also going to be joined by Thomas Grenier, Head of Franchise and Product Strategy, and Jon Heinrichs, Head of the RSV and R&D Franchise, is joining us online. Thank you. Here he goes. For the question and answer session, we would like to ask you again that you limit it to one or two questions. We have around 25 minutes. I think we're right in time. We're going to take questions from the auditorium. If you have a question here, if you could please identify yourself and use a microphone. Then on the webcast, just reminding you, raise the hand icon on the bottom of your screen and you will be notified, and then we're going to ask the question.
Please, at that point, make sure you unmute your microphone. Sorry, hands up again. We're going to start with Peter Verdult. If I could have a microphone here, and if we could already have a microphone for Florent for the next question, then maybe, Pete, if you could hand to the other Pete once you're done, we go quickly. Pete, ask your question.
Will do. Thank you. Pete Verdult, Citi. Two questions, one for Heather. Just can you talk a bit more about this real-world implementation study that you're setting up next year, just the scope and what you're trying to show in addition to what MEDLEY and MELODY already have shown? Then to Thomas, just on the brief, just to be clear, if we see positive data, can you remind us what commitments you have from Europe in terms of doses and what you would be fulfilling for next year and beyond? Thank you.
It works.
Yes, it works. You're the queen of RSV, so you take the first one. I'll take the second one.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Okay. Very good. Very good question. We're really excited about this study because we think it really helps support what our stakeholders need to make sure they recommend and fund nirsevimab. 2022 in Europe, targeted in most likely three countries, in the U.K., France, and Germany. Really the focus will be on hospitalization and the impact, sort of used in a real-world setting. We also believe that that will bring further confirmation because we'll target this to be a bit larger scale, that we can bring a lot more confidence to sort of go over and above the strong data set that we have today. Hopefully that helps give a little bit of clarity.
For the second part of the question, Pete, on the COVID-19. As you mentioned, waiting for the phase III results in a matter of weeks, of course, you will know immediately as soon as we have them. In terms of commitment, we have already 75 million doses of firm commitment from European Union countries and U.K. As you know, we have also a partnership with BARDA, in which they can tap as much as they want from the 100 million doses of pre-order that we have.
Good afternoon, Florent Cespedes from Société Générale. Two quick question. Follow-up on RSV. Could you maybe give us an idea of what could be the ramp-up of the product? How you see the ramp-up of this product, and could you remind us what could be the cost, because you said pretty much in line with the next generation vaccines? Maybe if I may, the last another one for you, Thomas. I think you said you do believe that post-pandemic, you could see something like 500 million doses each and every year. Could you maybe give us what is behind this estimate? Thank you very much.
RSV, COVID-19, I'm going to, again, start with you, Kimberly. We don't give guidelines on specific ramp-up period per product, as you know very well. I think it's important, Kimberly, that you share with the audience again what do we think in terms of pricing, how do we want to position this product?
Absolutely. Sure. Good questions. One, in terms of pricing to the last question, we anticipate the product to be cost-effective. I think that's a really important point first. It's our key guiding principle, and that's looking at the benefit of the product up next to what it does in the healthcare system and the benefit that it brings. I couldn't give you a pricing range today based on that. What I can tell you is two things to be confident about. It will show that it's cost-effective, and that will be compelling, because that's what payers and stakeholders need to see. We're giving you that range of recent premium priced vaccines so that you know candidly that that's where we're looking at it, and you can put it in a bit of a box and understand the category that it probably sits in.
That cost effectiveness is very important. We especially know for an all-infant use strategy. We don't target this product for some babies, we target it for all. The budget impact of that is clearly in our minds as we look at this. The only other point I would make on the ramp-up to that point is maybe just two things for the room. One, we anticipate going very quickly. We're ready for 2023, and we anticipate recommendations and funding in 2023. We don't think that that process is going to take a long time, if that's part of the question. We're ready to go, and we're excited about that.
As for the second part of the question, it's about the market size in, I would say, a post-pandemic period, 2024, 2025. We all have a personal crystal ball, I guess yours is as good as mine. A few things, though, I'd like to say on this point. First of all, what I said, and happy to reiterate it, is that we foresee that market post-pandemic to be in the vicinity of up to 500 million doses. Up to is as important as the 500. Where it's driven from is that I look, for example, at what's the flu market size in terms of volume today. Flu market size is roughly in the 500 million-600 million doses worldwide total market. That doesn't mean that it's going to be 500 or close to that.
The up to is the very important part there. It's going to depend significantly about what's the remaining burden of disease, especially in terms of severe outcomes, you know, the hospitalization, death, emergency visits, of course. That's going to be very critical. It's very difficult to predict what it's going to be in a couple of years down the road. I suspect it's going to be very low. Again, it's a crystal ball play. It's going to depend on where the recommendation for regular boosters are going to be. Are we talking about an age recommendation, like 65+, for example? Are we talking about comorbidities recommendation? That's going to be a big role. That's going to depend, as I was alluding to also, on the frequency of those revaccination.
I believe that you see a very different profile in terms of immunogenicity after a third dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. Titers are clearly going up with above where they were after two doses. I believe after a fourth dose, it's going to be again above where it is after a third dose. I think when I look at that, the expected duration of protection and the virus becoming more and more adapted to the human host, I foresee much more need for specific booster every three to five years as I was mentioning before.
Thank you. Okay. We go to Peter Welford.
Hi. Peter Welford at Jefferies. Two questions. Firstly, just on the mRNA, you and what you've just been talking about in terms of the dosing and the three to five years, is that based on mRNA specifically? Do you believe irrespective of what vaccine we got, I guess speaking from an AstraZeneca person perspective, do you think this is irrespective of that? Ultimately, you think as a disease, as a respiratory disease, we should be thinking about you're going to need at least three to four doses, or is this mRNA specific? The second thing I just want to bring up is related to that again, with the comments you made regarding the immunogenicity in terms of the systemic reactions, that I think was made in terms of 12 times, and I think it was three and a half times.
That was, I think, versus the third dose of the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine. Now, obviously, those doses are given in relatively close proximity in those studies, whereas obviously a flu vaccine is given annually. Just curious, relative to the first dose of the mRNA, obviously, there's a lot smaller difference. Do you think this is because you've got the doses in close proximity? Or do you think any way, by the time we get our fourth dose of mRNA, it's just going to get worse for all of us? I.e., is the fourth dose going to be a real issue for mRNA?
Thank you very much. Very important questions. Bill, be ready for the second question coming to you. On COVID-19, is it specific to mRNA or not? The comment I'm saying about the titers and the expected therefore impact in terms of frequency of vaccination, I would say clearly no. The response is, you've seen many studies, small ones very often, but a lot of them have been quite consistent, showing that if you have an heterologous schedule, you actually see very strong titers. I think that goes towards saying that actually, as long as you've got three doses, and if there is a fourth one, even further, of a reasonably acceptable good vaccines, mRNA or another technology, you will see very significant titers. I believe that it's more linked to the virus. Let me put it in another way.
There is a huge number of flu strains, the diversity of flu strains is massive compared to the diversity of COVID-19 variants. That's why I believe with the stability of the virus, COVID-19 moving forward, its adaptation to human host, you will see more frequency of vaccination like 3-5 years. Again, post-pandemic 2024 and beyond. The very important question about side effect, mRNA, flu, your co-administration study that you've shown. Bill, can you elaborate further? Thanks.
Absolutely. Thank you, Thomas, and thank you for the question. Certainly, if Jean-François or Frank want to chime in on the science side of this, please feel free. You are correct, it is the third dose of Moderna's product that was involved in that co-administration study. I think one of the things we have to understand is that there's a lot of unknowns here. What we do know about the flu vaccines is they can be given every single year with an excellent safety profile. There's not been an issue with any of the safety information across Fluzone High-Dose or standard dose vaccines across, again, over a decade of being studied, just with Fluzone High-Dose alone. We have a lot of known data on safety and efficacy and protection beyond flu with these products.
That's really the point I think we're making here is that there are no quick wins here. The studies have to be done. We have to find a way to make sure these products are measured against outcomes that actually matter, both across efficacy, effectiveness, and safety, to your point. That work has to be done.
Maybe if I can add one single point. It was the third dose indeed of mRNA. It was probably a tenth dose of flu vaccine. You still see a contrasted difference in between the adverse events. The third dose of mRNA is not going to be very different from an adverse events profile than the first or second dose.
Okay. Simon, Emmanuel, and then Jean-Jacques. If we could have a mic here.
Yes. Simon Lake from Redburn. Another flu question for Bill. You talked about the need for mRNA to demonstrate efficacy over multiple seasons. Could you therefore give us an idea of if one had started hypothetically developing an mRNA flu vaccine this year, when it could realistically be on the market? Secondly, for Kimberly, Bill did a great job of explaining the limitations of mRNA in flu. Could you do the same in RSV, given that Moderna's got mRNA-1345 in development for pediatric RSV? Thanks so much.
Let's start with flu. Bill, timelines.
Yes. Thank you. Very good question. I think the importance of studying across multiple seasons is because of the variability of the virus. I think you're seeing different strains across different populations require studies to be shown to actually have that consistent approach. I think that's one of the things we're really proud of with our Fluzone High-Dose data package, is that consistency of data. In something so variable, you see ups and downs, and people think that flu vaccines are going to go up and down as you've seen in the media. With Fluzone High-Dose, the range is really, really tight, which is really impressive. That's why the multiple seasons are really required, especially if you're going to be asking people to switch from a product that's already demonstrated that.
To do that, you need multiple seasons, you need against the standard of care, a comparator in the study, and that makes that timeline a bit further away. As I said before, there are no quick wins in flu. There's no way to do one quick immunogenicity study and take over the world. There's too much data out there across these differentiated products. We're quite proud of taking the commoditized lower value flu market that existed 15, 20 years ago and transformed it into a growing market across differentiated products. We've done that. We've raised the bar. Not just for everybody else, but also for ourselves. That's what we're going to be studying with our mRNA platform as well.
I think that the short answer to your question around timing is we don't expect an mRNA flu vaccine before 2024. Someone might jump in if there's another timeline in your head, but certainly not before 2024.
Just to add on this point, you can have a registration. You just have a registration. How do you get to convince payers? How do you get to convince people to actually receive the flu vaccine? RSV, building still on the mRNA, are there some mRNA threats you're afraid of? Kimberly?
Short answer would be no. A good question would be why? I'll start, and then Jean-François or Frank may also want to add a comment here. As you know, there have been decades of attempts at trying to get a vaccine for infants. The thing that is very specific about RSV is that you need protection starting at birth. You just have no time to build like you typically do. Pediatric combination vaccines are given in a series over those first few months to build up to that protection. Unfortunately, that critical risk period, it has to be immediately from birth. You'll hear this from Jean-François a bit later today, but we've chosen deliberately, our strategy of what belongs at birth in that first RSV season, and you're going to hear about what we think happens later for later populations.
We don't believe that mRNA is a threat or the best option for RSV for infants because of the timing of when they need that protection. Frank and Jean-François, don't hesitate to jump in with any other points. Jean-François gives me the thumbs up, I think it's okay.
That's the beauty of being a multi-platform vaccine player. You choose the platform for the best medical need, and you'll see with the potential RSV, three targets in RSV, three different platforms to fit the best need.
We have Emmanuel.
Thank you.
Mm-hmm. It works.
Taking the question. Emmanuel Papadakis at Deutsche Bank. Maybe a question on COVID. You published the phase II recombinant data in a preprint in October. It didn't look particularly impressive in terms of GMT titers relative to convalescent sera, for example, and there was also a notable grade 3 adverse event rate. Just give us a bit of color in terms of your expectations for the forthcoming phase III data. I think it was Paul mentioned earlier, encouraging booster data. Perhaps you can give us a bit more comments in that regard, what you're hoping to show from the perspective of GMT and safety. A question on RSV. It's a very safety-sensitive population. We had three deaths in the study. They didn't appear drug-related, but to what extent do you think that's going to lend itself to regulatory scrutiny, caution, are you expecting an outcome here?
Also, to what extent do you think that might lend itself to, for the foreseeable future at least, physicians preferring to stick with Synagis in the preterm at-risk population? Thank you.
Safety in RSV coming to you soon, Kimberly. For COVID-19, thank you for the question, Emmanuel. Again, phase III results are coming very soon, I'm not sure if I have much elaboration to make on the phase II results that were provided. It's really going to depend on the phase III results. Paul was alluding to, we had a sneak peek at interim results for the booster. We expect heterologous schedule to be good boosters. It's in line with the profile we expect. Now let's see. It's coming soon. Again, you know very well that we need the phase III, which we did in a very different environment. You know very well that it's a Wuhan-containing vaccine in an environment which is facing multiple diverse variants. I'm totally blind to the data, I'm very happy to talk about it. I don't have the information.
Coming very soon. Of course, as soon as we have it, we put it together and we share it with you. RSV, safety?
Sure. I'll make a quick comment. Then I actually would welcome my partner in crime, Jon Heinrichs, who you see on the Zoom, who's our R&D lead for nirsevimab. Let me just start with two things. I think it's a very good question. Babies, tiny babies, a very sensitive population. We know no issue of any of those instances being related to nirsevimab. Your question about do we anticipate hurdles from a regulatory standpoint or acceptance of the product. Short answer would be no, for two reasons. One, some of this is just about the education of that data. Two, it's also one of the functions that our real-world implementation project will bring in Europe in 2022. Larger scale data continues to bring more confidence with that. That's one thing we are cognizant that people need a bit of that confirmation.
Jon, maybe you want to give just a little bit to reassure on the safety data there and the details around it so folks know.
Yeah. Very good. Thank you. Thank you for the question. I'm happy to address it. Hopefully, everybody can hear me. We are very confident with the safety profile of this antibody. We've looked at it now in the phase III study as well as in the phase II/III MEDLEY study. You are correct to point out that there were three deaths in the MELODY study. None of those were associated with either RSV or administration of nirsevimab. In fact, the timing between administration of nirsevimab and the death was sufficiently long to really preclude the concept that it was related. The second part of that question is around Synagis. Will providers want to stick with Synagis maybe until they get a handle on some of the safety questions that you had?
I think what we need to remember here is that Synagis is administered in a monthly manner. Those babies have to be brought in to the clinic. They have to be given an injection every month. Because of that, if you compare the profile of nirsevimab, which is given one time, to the profile of an antibody that's given monthly, there's an inherent advantage, not only for convenience but for safety for nirsevimab. I think that's really going to drive the transition from Synagis to nirsevimab. We are very confident in the safety profile, and we are very confident that none of the deaths are in any way related to nirsevimab.
Thank you.
Okay, thanks. The last question, the auditorium from Jean-Jacques here in the middle, and then we're going to move to some questions from the webcast.
Thank you. Jean-Jacques Le Fur from Bryan Garnier. First question for Thomas, perhaps. Looking at your pipeline, I saw that most of the products you presented are improvement of existing vaccine. In addition to RSV, only, I would say only, under quotes, three new diseases. I didn't see Lyme, I didn't see C. difficile, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, CMV. Is there any reason why not hunting with this infectious disease? Sorry. The second question is for Bill on the mRNA flu vaccine challenges. You presented to us about three or four issues for developing such a vaccine. In your view, what is the most challenging one to be solved to have competitive mRNA flu vaccine? Sorry. We understand the story of having clinical trials over three seasons, but for example, is administration challenges or issues is one of the key challenges? Thank you.
Thank you, Jean-Jacques. On the first point, only three vaccines. That is a good question. I'm very happy about the pipeline we are building together with the R&D team in Sanofi in vaccines. It's a big change for us. Of course, in the second part, we'll have much more explanation with Frank DeRosa and with Jean-François Toussaint. We'll talk about chlamydia. We'll talk about acne. We really believe these are very strong, nice moves. Interestingly, you mentioned CD for Lyme. We're not going there, by the way, because there are already people there, and therefore, we don't believe we'll be first in class, best in class. Neither we believe they are so interesting targets in the first place.
We spent significant amount of time with the team since I joined to make sure that we really look at the screening of all the pathogens, where we are, where we have in our R&D toolbox differentiated tools that make us winners there and really focus on those. It's about making sure that we really focus on winning areas. Flu, mRNA flu, what it takes to be competitive. Can you give us a bit of a reminder?
Yes, of course. Thank you, by the way. I think just to remember and to remind you, the key three success factors for protection beyond flu, safety and tolerability, and administration. To your point, the second two are sometimes overlooked. Having said that, the first and most important is protection beyond flu. You do have to find consistent results across multiple seasons versus a standard of care with endpoints that actually matter. When you look at the data, for instance, you're 10 times more likely to have a heart attack within one to three days of a flu infection. Providers and payers want to see the impact of these complications in your safety, I'm sorry, in your immunogenicity or your efficacy studies that you do. You can't just have a quick study and do that. First and foremost, that protection beyond flu is an absolute must-have.
The other two are also equally important because when you think about a seasonal vaccine, this is routinely given to hundreds of million patients across multiple access points. Not just healthcare providers, not just retail pharmacies, at work, drive-in clinics, all these different innovative ways to deliver these vaccines require incredibly safe vaccines and require thermostability. Thermostability, Frank DeRosa will talk about later, and we'll show you the platform we're having. Really the important thing here for me to remind you is the first generation mRNA products don't deliver on any of these three success factors. It will take a second-generation product, and some of these issues are going to be hard to overcome, and that's why folks like Frank DeRosa and his team are going to work really hard, and it's going to take some time to get all this done.
Very important point. Indeed, science first. Endpoints, you need to have hospitalization. You need to have pneumonia. You need to have cardiorespiratory hospitalization endpoints in order to be able to drive the value. That's very important to get this value, because another element that is sometimes very forgotten is the value price versus the COGS. We know very well that if you look at the flu market, you probably have seen slide 23, not to remind it, where you are showing the market where it goes. There's a significant part which is about standard flu vaccine. That remain an interesting value proposition for countries that prefer a one size fits all with a more moderate budget in order to be able to protect people against flu. Sorry. Standard vaccines are at price points that are below EUR 10 a dose.
Those price points are not going to be the price point of innovative vaccines coming down the road, whatever platform. That's a pocket that is not going to be addressable there. Again, you're going back to the endpoint. What is my endpoint in terms of science? Can I do it in prefilled syringe? Frozen product in prefilled syringe, challenges coming on the road. All of this is solvable. That's why we're super excited about the mRNA second generation, which is a hint to the next part of the presentation. We're not there yet.
Okay. We will now take the question online from Wimal Kapadia at Bernstein. Wimal?
Great. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Wimal Kapadia from Bernstein. First, can I just ask about nirsevimab, please? Just looking on your slide, the guidance to 2025, it looks as though you expect nirsevimab to be around EUR 0.5 billion in 2025, sales. It seems like you believe the total infant market is worth about EUR 2.5 billion, according to slide 34. I guess what I'm really trying to understand is your EUR 2.5 billion market potential based on the assumption that this becomes a 90% penetrated vaccine market for all newborns? Because if you assume greater than 90% penetration like existing pediatric vaccines, should that number not be 2x of the EUR 2.5 billion? I'm really just trying to understand your comments on the infant recommendations for all, which you emphasized, versus the EUR 2.5 sales potential of the infant category.
That's the first question. My second question is just on the composition of growth regionally for influenza in terms of the EUR 15 billion by 2030. I appreciate how you segmented in the slides, how much of the volume growth, sorry, the value growth, is driven by EM like China, where penetration is very low? How much of it is actually driven just by a shifting mix in established markets where penetration upside is more modest? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Wimal. RSV and flu. RSV recommendation to market size. Maybe you want to specify some geographical aspect, it's all infant protection in given markets, maybe not for all markets. Bill Averbeck, we're coming to you for flu.
Sure. A very good question, you're right in the assumption of, one, the overall market value, EUR 2.5 billion. That's what we estimate. You're right in the assumption right around EUR one and a half billion, EUR 1.5 billion, EUR 1.7 billion for RSV for nirsevimab. The assumptions we've made, Thomas Triomphe made an interesting point, we don't anticipate, one, that every market will be the same in terms of all infant protection. We want that, we don't necessarily assume that that will be the case. You have our key markets that you're going to see us focus first, obviously in the U.S. and in Europe and in Japan and China, as you saw in my presentation. We anticipate very high recommendations and penetrations there. We'll also stage those launches and those introductions over years into other markets beyond that.
We've assumed two things in the uptake and the penetration. One, we do give it some time to get to those typical pediatric penetration rates. Sorry, I don't think that was working for a minute. We do anticipate it takes some time to get to those rates. We have a bit of a ramp-up, we don't anticipate the same rate everywhere. Higher uptake rates in markets where the pediatric immunization platform is more well-established. We have every reason to believe we'll be successful there. Then in some of those markets, it might not be as much. It might take some time to build, we also have to build some awareness on RSV in some of those markets that may be less sophisticated on that. You're largely right in the assumption.
It's just that we have a ramp-up, and there's a bit of geographic diversity in it, if that makes sense.
Thank you, Kimberly. Sorry. Market size, Bill, in terms of flu, some elements, qualitative elements about geography and other aspects.
Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think one of the things to remember is that there's two factors here, and they converge a lot. Increased immunization rates, specifically across an increasing and aging population. Some of these targets are the specific targets for our differentiated products. Not only will immunization rates increase, but they'll also increase using differentiated premium price products. You see a very interesting effect happen there. When you look at the immunization rates specifically, we're only projecting about a half a point increase per year. We think it's pretty doable in terms of immunization rate increase overall. The real value transition is the differentiated products. As you saw on the slide, they're going to represent about the majority of the market value in 2030.
That continuous uptake of differentiated products, we continue to see in the U.S., where you see two out of three seniors immunized. We're also seeing global expansion occur. In areas like Germany, where STIKO has a preferential recommendation for flu is in high-dose, Efluelda, which is called in Germany. We're seeing that expansion happen globally, which is driving considerable growth on the market size that we're projecting.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you, Bill.
Okay. We'll take a final question before the break, from Jo Walton at Credit Suisse. Jo?
Thank you. Jo Walton from Credit Suisse. You've emphasized the need for protection data on going beyond flu, such as hospitalization. If we look at your slide 29, we can see that the main share conversion for high dose flu came when you got just the simple efficacy data. All other things being equal, what's changed that means that future vaccines can't also gain meaningful share from just showing initial superior efficacy, assuming that safety is also acceptable? I would imagine that payers could see that if you reduced a level of flu infection from X to Y, then they would say that there would also be a similar X to Y change in all of the sequelae. Following on from that, in the past, I believe that the companies that did the best in flu were those that could deliver their flu vaccine first.
Even if there isn't a change in how the strains are chosen, there's an mRNA flu vaccine out there, presumably it could get to the market and actually be delivered earlier than the current generation, just because we know that they don't take so long to get. Their manufacturing isn't so long. Isn't that also a risk in terms of market share?
Thank you so much, Jo, for those questions. Very important questions. Maybe I'll start quickly on the first one, and Bill, you'll complement. The time element is something we're going to see in the second half. Jo, you were referring to slide 29, which is the slide showing the 10 years of performance of flu and high dose. The big difference between now and the environment of 10 years ago is that then it was an all commodity market. There was no flu, high dose. There was no Flublok. That's a big difference, because now people have new data in place that show protection beyond flu that was not there available at that time. I think that's a very significant game changer.
The second difference, that's what we were trying to say before, is that it's not only one criteria that's going to cut it. It's the multiple criteria we've seen before, therefore we are back on top of what we just discussed on the adverse events, on the ability to be prefilled, liquid prefilled syringes available in due time. I think that's going to be a set of different criteria that will be there. The second point is very important, Bill. What about this myth that maybe we could select the strain differently or that we could produce very early and vaccinate all the elderly in the U.S. in June or in May?
Thank you, Thomas. Certainly, your second point, you're going to be seeing a bunch of information for Jean-François later in the presentation. Let me just go backwards before I go forwards and just reinforce what Thomas said. The market 10 years ago in the U.S. was an incredibly different place than it is now. There was nothing there offering any type of value proposition except for time to market. It was a speed commodity game. High dose came in and changed that equation with efficacy data. Back then, that was what we needed, but I can tell you, talking to governments and health authorities now, whether it be STIKO, whether it be NACI in Canada or ECDC, all of these governing bodies and health authorities are looking well beyond efficacy in their evaluations. When you look at their evaluations, they're looking at protection beyond flu.
They're looking at reductions in hospitalizations. That are the key factors that they're looking at. I don't think you make the jump because if you did X, that you can receive Y. I think the variability of flu demands proof and the level of protection that they're already getting from a product like flu and high dose also demands proof before you make a change. That's an element that's consistent. Back then, they wouldn't move without a significant data in their minds, and now the same thing. Health authorities are not going to move a market until they're completely convinced it's as good, if not better, than what they're getting now. In terms of time to market, I'll say one thing. Time to market was the only thing that mattered in a commodity market.
In a differentiated market, there is allowances for time to market for the better medicine product. Medicine matters, especially in these at-risk patients like the 65 plus. A couple of things to consider in the production process of flu. 75% of the time is on test. No matter what technology you use, no matter what platform you use, a two weeks to really test takes two weeks. Filling prefilled syringes takes quite a lot longer than filling multi-dose vials. A 10-dose vial versus a unit dose presentations, literally 10 times as long. There are aspects of what the market demands across these three key success factors that are going to limit their ability to deliver product exceedingly early across any technological platform that's there. Strain selection timing.
What I'll do is maybe I'll leave that to Jean-François for the presentation because I don't want to steal your thunder. I think what you'll see there is less than impressive impact. In fact, I think you coin it, ironically, as a coin toss. I'll leave it at that for you to explain later.
Thank you, Bill.
Okay, we're going to go into a very short 15-minute break. For those that are online, please just keep your Zoom link open and hopefully join us back in 15 minutes to move into our pipeline section. Thank you. Thank you and welcome back. We are now ready to start part 2, focused on the pipeline. For this, I would like to welcome on stage Jean-François Toussaint, our Head of Vaccines R&D. Jean-François?
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening for those who are in Asia. I'm really delighted to meet you here today, at least the ones who are in the room and the other on the screen. Actually, it's the first time that I meet you, and it's my pleasure for that. I've been in the vaccine industry for 15 years now. The last 9 months at Sanofi have certainly been the most intense in my whole career. I have to say that I've been very impressed by the level of energy, the sense of urgency, and the world-class expertise that I could find in my R&D teams. I knew that I was joining Sanofi at a unique moment for the vaccine industry. I knew also. I knew also that actually, Paul and Thomas had very big ambition for Sanofi's Vaccines division.
Trust me, the pace of transformation and the progress that we have made already here have exceeded all my expectations. I'm excited today to share with you my vision for Sanofi Vaccines R&D and our innovative and growing pipeline. Next slide, please. I have heard at many times that there is no room anymore to develop groundbreaking vaccines. It's gone. Not possible anymore. You know what? I believe it's wrong. Today, you'll see that we are opening a new chapter by answering disease areas with therapeutic vaccine, including a very first therapeutic vaccine against acne. We are doing that by leveraging our state-of-the-art capabilities in immunology and antigen design. We are also doing it by selecting exactly the right platform, the vaccine platform that is best suited for each given disease. What's our ambition?
We want to develop 10 new vaccine candidates and bring them to the clinic by 2025. More than half of them will be based on mRNA. You will see over the next 30 minutes that we are rejuvenating our pipeline, delivering new vaccine of value with a heavy focus on vaccines that are either best in class or first in class. You have seen that pipeline slide already with Thomas, and actually I will use it as a menu for the discussion here. We will present the key asset in our core franchises, but also in our growth segments. We will highlight the commercial potential, the reason to believe that they could be either first or best in class, and we will share where they are in the development. Here is another way to look at our pipeline.
You can see that all age groups will benefit from Sanofi innovative vaccine, from the well-established pediatric segment, up to the large and growing pool of all the adults. This view also highlight how the vaccine candidates in our pipeline represent a significant growth opportunity for Sanofi. Let's talk mRNA for a minute. You have seen over the summer that we made a very bold move in mRNA. But you should not overlook our broad set of technological platform. Have a look. No other company in the industry is leveraging as many technology as Sanofi does. We develop vaccine against large diversity of pathogens, and our broad set of technological platform allow us to pick either a protein or bacterial sugar as target antigens. Our platform have demonstrated effectiveness and safety across all ages. They've been combined in multivalent vaccine, offering sustained immune response, sometimes offering lifelong protection.
mRNA is an attractive technology, and we have taken the necessary action at Sanofi to have a leading mRNA platform in our toolbox. Lipid nanoparticle are sometimes overlooked, but they are equally important, and we have built a very robust position at Sanofi with the acquisition of Translate Bio, the acquisition of Tidal, but also our own internal efforts. We believe strongly in mRNA and LNP, and we like that technology, especially me as head of R&D. I like it because it allows me to bring assets quicker in the clinic. It allows to reduce the technical development cost, and actually has a potential to facilitate the development of combination vaccines. Let's be clear. mRNA cannot be used across the board. mRNA express a protein. You can only target protein antigen with mRNA, and that restricts its application to certain kind of diseases.
At Sanofi, we're in the privileged situation where we can really select the technological platform that is best suited for each disease. Speaking of platform, let me introduce Frank DeRosa, the person who actually discovered and developed what is today Sanofi's mRNA platform. Frank, maybe before you get started, you can come on stage, please. Before you get started, can you tell me, do you believe we are competitive today with our mRNA platform?
Thank you, Jean-François. Yes, I believe we have a tremendous future ahead of us. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, everyone. My name is Frank DeRosa, and it is my absolute pleasure to be here today in front of all of you and with everybody on the webcast. It's an exciting time for us here, for the team at Sanofi, as well as the team at Translate Bio. Today I'm going to share with you some of the progress that we've made in a short period of time since coming together, and our ambitious plans for where we want to take this platform. Before I get into all that, I want to share a personal note. For most of the world, mRNA became a household word maybe a little over a year ago.
For me personally, it has been my life's focus for over a decade, since the beginning of this platform, having helped build the original team, helping create the foundation, the mRNA and LNP capabilities of large scale manufacturing. Now to see the potential of this technology and the opportunity to take what we have built and scale it at an unprecedented level, for me, is truly exciting. I have to say, I have been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have visited multiple sites within Sanofi in the last two months, actually. The teams in Cambridge, in Orlando, and in France here, in Paris and Marcy-l'Étoile, and Lyon. It is actually my third trip in the last two months to France, it has been unbelievable, to be honest.
What I see here, the experience within this organization, the dedication of these teams, and the capabilities that this company brings with respect to everything, state-of-the-art analytics, formulation, processing, manufacturing, fill finish, you name it. These are things that we at Translate Bio always wanted to build over time, and we hope that we got to. It is present right here, right now in full force. As we go to slide nine, what are we doing with all of this? Well, we are moving fast, we are putting these strengths together, and we are forming an mRNA Center of Excellence, as Thomas had mentioned earlier. This center is designed to be flexible and agile with a biotech mindset. We are combining those strengths, the expertise, the know-how, the capabilities of both entities.
We are aiming for the center to have at least 400 dedicated resources, and I am happy to say that we have had a high retention rate with our TBio employees, many of which are part of the original team when we started this years back. We all know how hot this market is for talent, specifically in this space, we are really encouraged by that. We have expanded our capabilities both internally and externally in many different areas, such as delivery capabilities and even our recent announcement with our partnership with Baidu to expand our computational capabilities. We have generated encouraging clinical results from our first two clinical programs, which I will share in a moment, and you will hear about our adaptation and evolution of this platform as we push into clinical trials for next year and beyond. All right.
Let us begin with the snapshot overview of our first clinical trial with this technology as we move to the next slide. We have successfully entered our first phase I/II clinical trial, and this was to screen our technology for COVID-19, in particular, utilizing one of our proprietary LNPs and unmodified messenger RNA. Now the study design is shown here on the right side of the slide. The three dose levels, there were two injections at three weeks apart. As we move to the next slide, you will see some early positive interim results that we obtained from our first sentinel cohorts. Now, what we are looking at here are data representing both seroconversion with neutralizing antibody titers as well as tolerability. We observe a very nice immune response, 100% seroconversion at our top two dose levels. That is 15 and 45 micrograms.
The neutralizing antibody titers that we measured are represented as a ratio to that of convalescent sera. Again, we see a dose-dependent increase in the neutralizing antibody titers. These titers are exceeding those seen from the CureVac vaccine, which I believe is around 0.5 at their top dose. These results confirm the potential of our platform. As we look at the graph on the right side, we see reactogenicity profiles at each dose level, and we see elevated reactogenicity for our upper 2 dose levels. This result is in line with the profile that has been reported previously for unmodified COVID mRNA vaccines. Notably, we see a drop in reactogenicity after the second dose, which is interesting, potentially differentiating, and we'll be further characterizing this as we move forward with this platform.
We've continued to progress this platform in additional clinical trials, this time for influenza, and the clinical trial study design is shown on the next slide as we move forward. In this phase I clinical trial, we're continuing to explore the platform, this time for seasonal flu, and this is the first time this has been assessed in the clinic. It's through the application of a monovalent flu vaccine, looking at unmodified H3 hemagglutinin mRNA as our antigen, and this time it's in 2 different LNPs. The dose levels again are depicted at the right side, similar to the previous trial design that we just showed, but this time it's only a single dose. The early interim results of this trial are captured on the next slide as we move forward. We're very encouraged by these results thus far.
As before, we're looking at both seroconversion as well as tolerability in this first set of data here. In the first LNP, we see good tolerability across the board at all dose levels. However, we did not see a dose response with respect to seroconversion. This is in contrast to our second LNP, where we see a very nice dose response, and we're achieving equivalent titers to recombinant HA at 15 micrograms and superior titers at 45 micrograms. This is encouraging, although the reactogenicity for this particular formulation was elevated at that top dose level. When we look at that mid dose level, we're on par with Flublok immunogenicity, and we're presenting a reactogenicity profile very similar to the Moderna COVID vaccine. These data collectively prove that mRNA works for influenza with respect to generating titers.
There are differences between these 2 LNPs, but we are very encouraged at the overall performance, and we do recognize key areas for improvement, and we're already quickly moving forward to try and address all those with solutions. As we go to slide 14, the first way to address this is with a rapid and successful pivot to modified messenger RNA, and this is to help with the reactogenicity observations that we see. This platform is 100% amenable to modified technology, and we've looked at a lot of these different modifications over the years, we know this switch is very straightforward and readily applicable. We've been able to generate extensive preclinical data in multiple models. For example, shown here on this slide. These graphs, they're representing neutralizing antibody titers, robust titers in non-human primates for both unmodified and modified HA vaccines.
This is over a wide dose range. We've already generated GMP material that is modified mRNA that we anticipate utilizing in multiple clinical trials next year, including for both monovalent and quadrivalent flu vaccines in 2022. Our first modified mRNA clinical readout will also be in 2022, and you'll hear more about this approach in a few moments with Jean-François Toussaint. As we go to the next slide, we understand there are multiple factors in creating an optimal mRNA vaccine, and we of course want to keep reactogenicity to a minimum. This evolution of our platform is providing us with enhanced properties for potentially lowering reactogenicity, not only through the use of modified mRNA, but also through designing more optimal delivery systems.
The graphs here, they represent two selected cytokines that we're using as biomarkers with which we can represent stimulation, and we're looking at both the type of mRNA as well as the delivery system used using our proprietary MIMIC system assay. As we've evolved on both the mRNA front as well as the delivery front, we see a progressive reduction in these biomarkers, which we expect to reduce reactogenicity as we move into the clinic. As you've heard earlier from Bill Averbeck, there are challenges which need to be addressed, other ones besides this when we think about creating those optimal messenger RNA vaccines. Next slide, please. Thermostability, certainly a big factor here when it comes to creating competitive vaccines outside of a pandemic setting. Looking on this graph at the left, I like this graph a lot.
There's a nice comparison of where the current state of stability is for various vaccine technologies, and this is under pharmacy-friendly conditions, two to eight degrees Celsius or refrigerated conditions. You can see that mRNA-based vaccines have minimal stability under these conditions as a liquid suspension, and you compare that to Sanofi's Fluzone with stability of one year under these conditions, and even Hexaxim with four years stability at two to eight degrees Celsius. Very impressive. What do I mean when I say this word thermostability? It's about the integrity of your drug product over a period of time at a given temperature. For mRNA LNPs, we always think about particle size, aggregation, but the critical issue is mRNA integrity. Critical. Many people think about mRNA integrity, and they think nucleases, RNases.
I like to describe this with my team as ghosts that you can't see, but they are everywhere, and they are about to chew up your RNA, which is all true. What we are referring to here is hydrolysis. Water cleaving your mRNA, and it only takes one break in that phosphate chain to lose all your activity. It's very important. This is a critical fundamental parameter that we are looking at, and we're taking multiple approaches to addressing. First of which is represented in the middle slide, excuse me, the middle graph on this slide, and that's through lyophilization, a process to remove water. We've already achieved one year stability at two to eight degrees under lyophilized conditions, and you can see that we're measuring mRNA integrity there. That line is very nicely holding steady across that graph over 12 months.
You compare that directly to its liquid form, the same formulation, which shows extensive degradation by one month and completely degraded by three months. We are ready to go with lyophilized mRNA formulations with our proprietary process, and we can use those for specific programs. Some may have told you that lyophilized formulations for vaccines will solve everything. It won't. You need a stable, fully liquid formulation to meet or exceed the standard of care, as Bill had mentioned earlier. That's what's represented on this graph on the right side of this slide. We know this takes time, and it's not easy, but we've made a lot of progress on this front.
Represented here in this graph is a novel proprietary prototype lipid nanoparticle formulation that's demonstrating stability at two to eight degrees as a liquid in the presence of water. The way we're measuring that on this graph is actually through in vivo potency over the course of six months, looking at reporter protein production from that mRNA. While this is still a prototype, we are extremely encouraged by these data, and we're looking to apply these learnings to our lead next generation formulations as we develop a more optimal stability profile and direct application to wider vaccine markets. We can summarize these parameters on the following slide. All right, how do we view this platform? We have a fantastic foundation for this platform, and that's through its comprehensive development for over a decade.
We recognize the barriers that we have to face, and these are faced by all companies in this field, and we are rapidly addressing each one of them. As we go through this table, we've classified each of these stages of progression as generations, first generation, second generation, so on. These generations are classified based on their properties and the resulting markets with which they can address. For example, first generation mRNA, this is where our current COVID vaccines are. We can all agree they've had a tremendous benefit to everyone. They demonstrate high immunogenicity, but they also demonstrate moderate to high reactogenicity. These properties are further complicated by poor thermostability profiles. As we've all seen, these have worked well under pandemic situations, but we do not believe that this will be acceptable for established vaccine markets.
For those markets, we look towards second generation mRNA vaccines, and this is where the reactogenicity profiles are dramatically improved and the thermal stability is greatly enhanced, either through lyophilization, as we've already demonstrated and we have our process for, or even better, a fully liquid vaccine for a minimum of nine months, preferably one year at two to eight degrees Celsius, and this will be the case for flu applications. As we continue to evolve the platform and make innovative steps forward, we're adding to these beneficial properties and creating ways of perhaps finding ways to extend the duration of expression or even tailor our delivery systems for organ and cell specificity. We've got efforts continuing and making progress along all these fronts. This really begins to allow you to think more broadly, to allow for further applications outside of vaccines and into multiple therapeutic areas.
This is one of the things I love about this technology, its potential for broad applicability. For the last 12 years, I've been focused on using mRNA for therapeutic applications, using mRNA to treat rare chronic disease and other areas. What excites me again with the teams and the capabilities here at Sanofi is the scientific expertise and their novel approaches to medicine. In the short two months that we've been together since this acquisition, not only have we pushed deeper into vaccines, we've also been working very closely with groups across the greater organization to try and apply this platform in areas such as CAR T therapies, in collaboration with the Tidal team and technology, in areas such as genome editing, and even looking at our delivery capabilities and applying them towards other nucleic acid-based therapies.
We have established a platform which works. We recognize the challenges ahead, and we're already moving full speed towards solutions for those. We have an extremely competitive team. Now we are weaponized. This is why I'm truly excited about the future here and the establishment of this mRNA Center of Excellence. Now you hear about our pipeline deploying multiple technologies, including how we are applying our next generation mRNA technology across multiple disease targets. Jean-François?
Thank you so much, Frank. Thank you also for bringing such a robust mRNA platform in Sanofi and such wonderful team, by the way. Thank you very much. Now let's start the deep dive into our pipeline. This is something that I will do with my partner in crime, Thomas Grenier, that you have seen on the stage for the Q&A. Together with Thomas, we are shaping the pipeline in the vaccine division to win not only in science but also on the marketplace. We'll start with the next generation influenza vaccines. I feel it's a very good segue because of the heavy role that the mRNA is playing in our strategy.
You will see in a couple of slides that we will go through that mRNA won't be sufficient, and that it is a unique science and the data that we have accumulated over the last decades that will keep us ahead of this in the space of influenza vaccine. The influenza vaccine market is growing, and we predict that it will reach EUR 15 billion by 2030. As a flu vaccine leader, we are building the next generation of influenza vaccine by incorporating multiple layers of innovation. You will see in the next slide our development plans with the mRNA platform in flu, but I will also share with you the ongoing work in R&D with machine learning and immune diseases. Frank has shown you the encouraging result with the monovalent flu trial. Let me share the next step here on this slide.
Actually, you see that we have conducted preclinical evaluation with quadrivalent mRNA vaccine, and we're pleased to see that this mRNA vaccine was at par or slightly better than recombinant HA, which is used in Flublok, as you know. We know that thermal stability and tolerability of the profile of the influenza vaccine will be important, and that it must exceed the one that we have now in the market, and it must match the one that we have in today's vaccine. That's why we've pivoted. We've pivoted to modify the mRNA, and we are testing multiple lipid nanoparticles. The progress that we've achieved so far is very encouraging, and it's completely in line with our expectations when we started it. Next year, we're going to start our phase I/II trial with quadrivalent modified mRNA HA-based vaccine.
It will benchmark mRNA versus standard of care, looking at immunogenicity and safety. It will also allow us to select the formulation that we will bring in phase III. If everything goes well, we're going to start the phase III actually one year later in 2023. The objective of the phase III will be to demonstrate safety but also efficacy of our vaccine and compare it to the standard of care. Remember that our goal with the next generation of influenza vaccine is to improve the efficacy, we need to demonstrate it. Demonstrate it also the protection beyond flu is very important. Protecting against the severe consequences of flu is something that is valued by payers, and this is something that we will embed in our development plan.
Actually, we are convinced at Sanofi that raising the efficacy of influenza vaccine may also require new strain selection, building a little bit on the question that came earlier during the former session. Let's face it, we don't believe that it is going to be a simple journey, and we don't believe that just delaying the strain selection by two or three months will make the difference. We don't believe it's going to be the solution. Why? Let's look at some facts. On this slide, on the left, you see that we have analyzed the main circulating strains over the last 10 years. As you can see in yellow here, there are only two years where there was a significant mismatch that occurred between the vaccine strain and the WHO selected strain.
This highlights that the impact of a mismatch on the overall efficacy of flu vaccine is not so dramatic, and we need to do something different. The graph on the right illustrates the circulation of one clade of H3N2 virus between 2013 and 2015. WHO selection takes place in February, which is highlighted in gray here. Vaccination starts in September, that you see in blue. Actually, the epidemic happens from December onwards, highlighted in pink. As you can see, the strain evolution is very dynamic. The strain that predominates right before the season may collapse as soon as we start vaccination or even when we are in the season. If you look at that pattern, really selecting the strain of flu to include the vaccine later would not have helped at all. By the way, we are December 1st.
Who can bet here that we won't have a mismatch this year? Or if we have a mismatch, the mismatch will last the whole season. I bet nobody can do it today. Just highlighting that selecting later will not help. Of course, we believe we need to select a better strain. How are we going to do that? With us, it's with machine learning. You know, everybody talks machine learning these days. At Sanofi, we just didn't talk about it, but we also took our leadership role into full play. We piloted the selection of flu strain by machine learning. What did we do? We have actually leveraged thousands of sequences available in the public domain. We have also included data generated in our own laboratories.
We applied machine learning, selected 4 strains, and did prototype of them that we included in a clinical trial and compared to the standard of care, the strain that is recommended by WHO. We evaluated the level of functional antibody that these prototypes were eliciting. As you can see on the left-hand side, the strains that were picked by machine learning sometimes match, but usually induce higher titers against a variety of strain, representing the diversity of flu H3N2. This is important. This is an important slide, guys. These are data that we actually have never shared so far. If you want to look also at another way we could represent our data, we looked at seroconversion. You know in flu GMT seroconversion, both are important.
You can see on the right-hand side of the slide that actually 2 out of the 4 machine learning selected strain induce a better seroconversion, a broader seroconversion against more strains. The other 2 were not better, but they were matching the WHO standard of care. Instead of being theoretical and simplistic, we have in our hand here at Sanofi the very first data suggesting that machine learning can help selecting better strain. Of course, our algorithm is not perfect. I told you these were prototype strain. We keep obviously improving it and going to the clinic and generating data, feeding them in the algorithm is what matters to really win in that space. We spoke about mRNA, we spoke about machine learning. The third layer of innovation that we are incorporating in our flu vaccine is about including novel antigens.
At Sanofi, we've been looking at neuraminidase for years because our Fluzone High-Dose vaccine contains higher amount of neuraminidase. It induced higher seroconversion, as you can see on the left of this slide. We even have some preliminary evidence that the antibodies against neuraminidase contribute to the higher efficacy of Fluzone High-Dose. What did we do? We have generated so far data with neuraminidase in an mRNA format, and we have shown that we can include it in QIV mRNA HA-based vaccine without any interference. You can see, of course, that the titers against neuraminidase were very nice as well. I trust now that this short overview gave you an idea of our determination here at Sanofi to keep innovating in flu. mRNA will be a fantastic tool to advance the next generation of influenza vaccine.
Innovation beyond mRNA will be required to deliver the high efficacy that everybody is expecting, actually. RSV is another area of focus in our pipeline. This is also a franchise that is very close to my heart because I've been spending thousands of hours shaping and leading various RSV vaccine programs prior to joining Sanofi. This is a field I know well. We actually estimate that RSV market would exceed EUR 8 billion by 2030, and it's a market spread across three age groups. We at Sanofi will play in the three segments, but we have made the educated choice, as already framed by Kimberly, to leverage different platforms, different technologies, different vaccine candidates, to make sure we deliver the optimal protection for each age group.
As Kimberly explained, we are very pleased by nirsevimab phase III data, multiple phase III all going the same direction. We are confident we'll take a significant share of the infant market. For toddlers, we are developing a live attenuated virus vaccine as a follow-on to nirsevimab. For older adults, we are leveraging our mRNA platform, starting first with RSV standalone vaccine and then moving forward with potential respiratory combo vaccine. This slide actually shows the burden of RSV in toddlers. It is a burden that is often underestimated. Hospitals, general practitioners, and RSV experts are very clear. The RSV burden doesn't stop after the first season, and you can see it from this slide actually. RSV remains a significant driver of hospitalization in children between one and four years of age.
You can also see that it's a significant driver of outpatient visit, actually exceeding that in the infants below one year. All of these visits, these hospitalizations, are triggering a significant healthcare usage, but actually also causing a loss of productivity for parents. We are convinced at Sanofi that we have the very first RSV vaccine toddler, that has the potential to deliver both a very strong safety profile, but also a strong efficacy against upper and lower respiratory tract infection, preventing outpatient disease and hospitalization. Our vaccine candidate is a live attenuated virus that we have in-licensed from the NIH. NIH has actually rationally designed that vaccine candidate to achieve the fine balance as it is always the case with live attenuated vaccines, between under-attenuation and over-attenuation.
To say it differently, to achieve the very sweet spot where the virus can still replicate, elicit a protective immune response while remaining safe. It took actually seven candidates evaluated in clinical trials in toddlers, and two decades for NIH to identify that specific live attenuated virus that we're talking here about. We currently have an ongoing phase I/II trial with that candidate. We expect to have a readout on safety and immunogenicity in 2022. Actually, we already have exciting data with that vaccine candidate, and these are data that have been generated by the Johns Hopkins University. This graph shows the two most promising live attenuated viruses that they developed. You can see from the left graph that both candidates here were eliciting a very strong immune response, strong neutralizing antibodies.
We decided to go with the Delta NS2, the ones with the square around it, because we prefer its shedding profile and its safety profile as well. Interestingly, the Johns Hopkins Institute conducted a meta-analysis pooling these two live attenuated viruses, and they could already show a significant reduction of medically attended acute respiratory infection. As the vaccine is given intranasally, we are confident that it has the potential to actually prevent the large burden of RSV outpatient visits in addition to the hospitalization. Given these early promising results, we have decided in Sanofi to accelerate the development of this vaccine candidate that would be a first in class for sure. Let's now have a look at the other end of the age spectrum. You can see on this slide that influenza, RSV, and other respiratory viruses continue to impose a large disease burden in the older adults.
The epidemiology of these viruses is quite different from each other. Flu is changing very quickly and mandates yearly adaptation of the vaccine composition. On the other hand, you see RSV, HMPV, and PIV are different. They show a very slow, very limited, actually, evolution, which will not require adjusting the vaccine every year, and which will not require seasonal administration of the vaccine. We are convinced at Sanofi that the burden of RSV is sufficient to justify the development of a RSV standalone vaccine. As a second step, we expect the RSV vaccine to be part of a broader combination vaccine for older adults. The next question is, okay, you start an RSV program, nice. You go in the clinic in 2022 with that, how are you going to differentiate from competition?
Here, again, we have leveraged our core competencies to design a superior antigen based on the RSV fusion protein. The preclinical data that we've generated show that our proprietary antigen focuses the immune response on the most important antigenic site on the virus. This is the site zero, the same site that is targeted by nirsevimab that Kimberly likes so much. Our antigen is associated with an increased immunogenicity over our competitor antigen that you can recognize in the middle panel. We have shown that this antigen is compatible to be used in an mRNA format, or as you can see on the right. This smart design is actually being under the spotlight when it has been selected by the prestigious journal, "Science Immunology," to become the cover of one of the edition.
With that antigen in our hand, yes, we're going to start a phase I/II trial next year in 2022. As I mentioned earlier, we are not going to stop there, we have already initiated the first step to develop a respiratory combination vaccine for older adults. We have actually conducted several rounds of immunization of the HMPV, human metapneumovirus, fusion protein antigen. This has led to a design with improved immunogenicity and improved stability. We have shown again on the right graph that this antigen is compatible and works under mRNA format. The work continues. We are not stopping here. We are working on other targets, and we plan actually to advance a respiratory combo virus vaccine by 2023. Again, phase I, II. Overall, I get you grasp my excitement for RSV. This has been my life for quite a few years.
Our end-to-end pipeline is really exciting. Actually, my ambition is for Sanofi to be quoted as the RSV company in the future, and Kimberly will like that, and she will pioneer that with me or she's enough. Let's switch topic. Next slide, please. May I have the next slide? No. The former one. Yeah. The former one. Seems we're missing a slide here. No worries. That's fine. Actually, I wanted to transition now. Sorry for that. I wanted to transition to other assets in our pipeline. Assets that I will actually cover with Thomas will show us the progress we're making on pneumococcal and meningitis. Thomas, floor is yours.
That's right, François. Exciting news. We are discussing two areas today, pneumococcal, a new field for us, and meningitis, an area where we are winning today, and we plan to keep winning in the future. My name is Thomas Grenier. I'm in charge of franchises and product strategy for Sanofi vaccines. I'm delighted to be here today to share with you our ambition for these two key franchises. Let's start with pneumococcal on the next slide 32. It's a disease, it's a market that you know pretty well. I'm very excited to share with you today, for the first time, the unique features of our program and why we are convinced that we have everything it takes to become a key player here. First, why would we want to go in this arena? We see three compelling reasons. First, the size of the market, more than EUR 6 billion with growth expected.
Second, we see strong synergies with our existing and future product portfolio, both in pediatrics and adults. Third, the science. The science is fairly mature. One of the biggest challenges we see is in formulation with more than 20 serotypes in a single syringe. It's a great opportunity to leverage our formulation expertise that Thomas shared earlier today. Entering the pneumococcal serotype race is not a light commitment. That's why we have set up a strategic partnership with SK Bioscience, which helped us bring together the right capabilities and a good way to share the significant investment and risk of such an ambitious program. Why should anyone believe that there's room for us on this market? Well, we are convinced that there's an opportunity for us to keep raising the bar here. The race to expand strain coverage is not over.
You have certainly seen the latest ACIP recommendation, recognizing the value of both PCV20 and PCV15 combined with PPSV23 in adults to replace current standard. More strain coverage is a clear expectation from health authorities. What's our approach here? We decided to enter the field with a 21-component vaccine, including the serotype 9N, that will be adding up to 7 points of coverage in older adults. We're in this field for good, we will continue to monitor the epidemiology and keep adding new serotypes over the long term. Where are we with the development of the program? We are conducting an extensive phase II program, first in infants and toddlers, where we are testing the product as a primary series, followed by a booster dose, in adults and older adults, where we are studying it as a single dose.
In each population, we are evaluating three formulations that we benchmark against competitors. The goal is to identify the best composition to deliver competitive assets. We plan to have phase II results in all three population by the end of next year, and to progress into phase III as early as 2023. We are truly excited to enter this market by bringing enhanced protection to patients of all age groups. Let's face it, we are going after some of our competitors' bread and butter. For us, it's only upside. Now, meningitis. This is an area that we know extremely well because we pioneered it. The market is worth more than EUR 2 billion, with still a large growth potential. As you know, we are the leader with MenQuadrivalent, and Menactra in the U.S. with 65% market share.
We are setting a new standard with MenQuadfi, and I will share more about it in the next slide. Moving forward, we want to complement our portfolio with a competitive MenB, offering broader strain coverage. What does it do? Well, it paves the way to our ultimate goal, a best-in-class, fully liquid pentavalent vaccine based on MenQuadfi, proven best-in-class backbone, and our new MenB component with increased coverage. We see this as a very exciting perspective. Let's have a look at the reason why MenQuadfi is setting the new standard in the quadrivalent space. First, MenQuadfi offers a superior immune response against monovalent MenC and quad vaccines in naive toddlers. Second, MenQuadfi provides the best convenience to healthcare providers, with a fully liquid formulation requiring no reconstitution. Much simpler for providers. Finally, MenQuadfi is becoming the vaccine with the broadest age indication.
It's the only vaccine that fully matches both the U.S. and European schedule, allowing us to participate in all markets with one truly global product. Our indication in older adults with no upper age limit worldwide is key for international markets. Let me tell you why superior immune response against MenC matters so much for public health authorities, especially in Europe. Far, no MenQuad conjugate vaccines has demonstrated non-inferiority against serotype C. To maintain uncompromised protection against MenC, several European countries have decided to stick to monovalent MenC and not switch to quadrivalent. MenQuadfi brings the solution. We have brand-new data, and we can see them on the graph. MenQuadfi has demonstrated superior immune response against MenC in naive toddlers. We believe this will clear the switch to quadrivalent, providing enhanced protection to children.
As you remember, we first entered Europe with MenQuadfi this year in 2021, and we see growth opportunities for the future with upcoming conversions. Moving forward, we are convinced that MenQuadfi gives us an edge for the development of our best-in-class pentavalent vaccine. Starting with higher MenC titers will help counterbalance potential immune interference between serotypes, should that happen. Our competitors do not have this advantage with their quad backbone. Regarding MenB. We have a competitive MenB candidate currently in phase II. With this candidate, we target broader strain coverage, broader than current standard. Jean-François, please, would you tell us a bit more on the exciting science behind this improved MenB we're looking for?
Yeah. Sure, Thomas. Actually, we've designed a vaccine that addresses all the limitations that we've seen in the field over the last decade. We've selected a cocktail of antigens and specific design, actually, that offer a broad MenB strain coverage, and that has the potential also to have a reduced reactogenicity. Have a look at them. We first selected to include two fHbp proteins. We have decided to use mutated version of them, version that are actually non-lipidated to reduce the reactogenicity. We included NadA. NadA is very important, a gene that actually we find in most hypervirulent strains of MenB. Finally, we have included an outer membrane vesicle to broaden further the coverage, and also provide a slight adjuvant potential.
This is a vaccine composition that actually we have tested in preclinical models. Actually, you can see the data here on the right, and we have been very pleased to observe that our composition was actually eliciting antibodies with a bactericidal activity against all the representative strains. As you can also depict, the outer circles represent our competitor, and they could not do that. This vaccine is actually in phase I, II nowadays, and we expect an immunogenicity and safety readout in 2022. In addition, as Thomas mentioned, we plan to leverage MenACWY, MenQuadfi, bring MenB together and start the development of a MenPenta vaccine as soon as 2023. By the way, Frank, we just completed two important projects that are not based on mRNA.
Could you tell us why mRNA is not used there, and why potentially it will never get there. Can you tell me?
Yes. Well, I would say first, mRNA can do a lot of things. With respect to this target, if you want to be competitive and effective, it's going to take a little more than that, mRNA can't really address some of these approaches, such as polyconjugates and outer membrane vesicles that you have listed up there. I would imagine for some of our mRNA peers out there, with the singular technology, that they would not have a competitive early stage program in their pipeline for this target in particular.
Thank you so much, Frank. I think, guys, it's very important. These are fields that are not touched by mRNA. Actually, you saw it. To succeed in MenPenta, we needed to leverage glycoconjugate, recombinant protein, but also bacterial fermentation and outer membrane vesicles. That is something that not everybody can do, certainly. This is what it takes to lead in a field like meningitis. Now let's move on with the two new fields that actually we're pioneering. I want to complete the chapter of our pipeline here by opening the discussion on two new targets. I want to share with you how we are pioneering science to open new growth areas for Sanofi with two best-in-class vaccine. Tom already mentioned them, Chlamydia vaccine and Acne vaccine.
Actually, with Acne, we are opening a chapter where vaccines are used to treat chronic conditions of infectious origin. The program, of course, that I'm going to discuss are early. They are not yet in phase I/II, and we still have some uncertainty. Despite being conservative, we are very much convinced that these two program have the potential to bring sales above EUR 2 billion every year. Let's start with Chlamydia, the silent cause of infertility in women. Actually, Chlamydia is associated with a very high incidence globally. Not only here, everywhere in the world you see Chlamydia. In the U.S. only, it's estimated that 2 million women experience a Chlamydia infection every year. Actually, those who get diagnosed get treated with antibiotic and don't develop the severe condition of the disease.
As you can see from this slide, 800,000 of them are never diagnosed, and 300,000 of them are developing a severe complication, like pelvic inflammatory disease. That results at the end in more than 20,000 cases of infertility every year. As such, the mortality consequences of Chlamydia infection are for young women. Like for HPV, we anticipate that the vaccine would be first implemented in adolescent girls and in young women. Potentially afterwards, it will also go to men, because men also suffer from Chlamydia infection. The protection against Chlamydia require a very strong T cell immunity, and more specifically, the induction of CD4 T cell expressing interferon gamma. We have been screening multiple T cell antigen, and we could find two with a superior immunogenicity. You can see them on the graph here.
We have also compared this antigen in an mRNA format and recombinant format. Actually, we could see that the mRNA was superior to recombinant protein plus adjuvant. We also implemented in the lab a breakthrough innovation that allows us to measure the entry of Chlamydia trachomatis bacteria into endocervical cell line. This is a tool that our scientists are using today in the lab to screen and identify new antigens that can elicit a neutralizing antibody response. The research is on track to support the initiation of the first phase I/II with our Chlamydia vaccine candidate by 2023. Of course, you can see the need is very large, and we're really thrilled to have the potential to deliver solution for millions of women globally. Moving to slide 42 now. Today we are extremely pleased to welcome, actually, into the Sanofi family, the biotech from Austria called Origimm Biotechnology.
Paul talked about that. It's a small biotech that has been pioneering acne for a decade now. Origimm will actually accelerate our effort to develop the very first acne vaccine candidate. Acne is probably the most visible and widespread disease in adolescents. It's estimated that more than 200 million adolescents suffer from acne, and up to 40% of them develop moderate to severe acne. The form of the disease that is associated with the largest, most significant psychological impact on our adolescents. You are not without knowing for sure that acne is associated with an increase in suicidal thought in our adolescents, right? The standard of care in acne, as you know, is largely insufficient. On one hand, you have a lot of over-the-counter products and antibiotics that have a limited efficacy.
On the other hand, you have isotretinoin, actually a drug that displays some efficacy, but that can be associated with very severe adverse events, and that is barely used for that same reason. Needless to say that, and I guess we have a couple of parents in the room and on the web, the financial burden for acne is pretty significant. Actually, you see also that the bacterium causing acne is associated with other severe diseases. You can see that on the bottom right of the slide. These targets, while not today in our portfolio, are potential future targets for us as we move forward. Now let's move to the science. Actually, most people ignore that acne is a result of two opposing forces. Two forces, two players that we know extremely well in vaccine R&D.
On one hand, you have a bacterium, and the bacterium in acne is called Cutibacterium acnes. It's a bacterium that invades the pilosebaceous unit in our skin. On the other hand, you have the immune system, and the immune system gets excited by this bacterium. It overreacts and triggers a very significant inflammatory response. The good thing is that we do vaccines, and vaccines actually modulate the immune system and keep bacteria under control. That's why we are confident we can succeed in that field. With Origimm, we are acquiring a set of antigens that are inducing functional antibodies against the variant strains that are responsible for acne. You can see some results on the right-hand side here.
Origimm also brings a decade of expertise in acne and combining their expertise together with our science and our technological platform, we are very confident we can start a phase I-II by 2023. As we conclude this session, I think you will notice that we have been on a journey, a journey to rejuvenate our pipeline and build an industry-leading vaccine pipeline. We have added exciting assets in phase I. You saw RSV toddlers, my favorite for sure. You saw PCV21, and you saw also meningitis, MenB, to be followed by MenPenta. Now we are looking forward to bring 10 new candidates in the clinic by 2025. Remember, at Sanofi, we are a leader in vaccines. We have a broad technology toolbox and state-of-the-art capabilities in antigen design and immunology.
We have been delivering innovative vaccine to fight infectious disease in endemic and epidemic setting for decades. We will continue to do so. Today we're also opening a new chapter with vaccines to prevent and treat chronic diseases of infectious origin. We think that it is an underappreciated field with significant untapped potential. The first asset there is our vaccine candidate to treat acne. We had a jump start in that field with the acquisition of the dynamic biotech Origimm. All together, that brings us with a very balanced and promising pipeline that has been designed to improve public health globally while contributing to the sustainable growth of Sanofi. Let me hand over to Thomas for the conclusion.
Thank you very much, Jean-François. I have the feeling soon you will have 10 favorite projects, not just one. It's been great. I'm conscious of time. It's been really great to share with all of you our strategy. Whoops, sorry, a bit higher. Our capabilities and our industry-leading pipeline. Few words of conclusion, though, for today. I want to summarize what is probably a significant amount of new information. Number 1, we will continue to deliver according to our 2025 guidance and expect to more than double our sales by 2030. Thanks to our three core franchises, influenza leadership, strong management, PPH, and with our performances, and of course, the upcoming launch of all infant protection solution against RSV with nirsevimab. Number 2, our mRNA Center of Excellence is progressing at record speed. We really want to share with you.
We're excited to deliver the second generation of vaccines that will truly unlock the potential of mRNA. Number 3, we are building together highly innovative pipeline, addressing unmet medical needs that are of significant size and providing new solutions to patients suffering from very severe disease. We really hope that you enjoyed this session as much as we have. We are a bit of a passionate team. It's now time to open the second Q&A.
Maybe another small round of applause. Okay, yes. If I could just ask our presenters back on stage, and we're again joined by Jon. I probably don't have to go through the procedures again. We're going to start again with some questions here, also want to take the opportunity to take some questions from the web. Who wants to take one or two questions here? Maybe we go to Eric this time.
Yes. Hello. Eric Hubergos, Difo. Two questions. One R&D related, the other not. On R&D, in terms of flu, I was expecting in terms of challenges you to address mRNA, you did and pretty in-depth and thank for that, but also maybe universal flu vaccine to some extent. Some are moving. This could be additive and not a direct threat to what you're doing, but still. What are you thinking about that? Are you conducting anything internal or you just looking at what the others are doing and having more time to think about it? The second question that is not R&D related, just to understand to what extent nirsevimab can impact the P&L of the GBU of vaccines, because it's kind of a mab priced as a vaccine.
Just to better understand the push and pulls about how this might impact cost of goods and maybe as unit as well, and given the size of the drug, what we may expect, although we cannot expect to get specific answers about profitability of the drug itself. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Eric. For the first question, I'll bring this to you, Jean-François. Flu universal, it's something that's been discussed for many times. You know that we had some programs in the past around this. A very challenging time and the big list of companies have stopped their programs for complicated reasons. Jean-François, crisp answer, what do you think about universal flu?
Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think it's a fascinating one for sure in science. We have been active in the field. We've been looking at what is happening there. Honestly, so far, we have not been convinced by the approaches that are used. We believe all of them have flaws and will not lead to a product. We believe that machine learning will help us to actually develop better vaccine offering a better protection. That's a way, very pragmatic, but the way to deliver it. There are also some T-cell based approach that have been failing over the last two years. Again, not an area where we believe we can win. Finally, demonstrating the value of universal vaccine needs lot of data over a long time, and you cannot fail on a single year.
Again, here we believe we have the winning strategy with machine learning and improvement of the vaccine with the
On nirsevimab financials, you know it's a partnership with AstraZeneca, but we are on 50/50 P&L sharing. What we are foreseeing is of course nirsevimab is a significant growth driver for us. Profitability-wise, we're going to be in the ballpark of the profitability of the GBU. Really, it's a growth driver for us.
Okay, we would now move to some questions on the web, please, and then we can come back to the auditorium.
Okay, we'll start with Richard Vosser from J.P. Morgan. Richard?
Thanks. Taking my question, Richard Vosser from J.P. Morgan. Just a question on RSV to start with. Just on the vaccine toddler approach. Just if you could give us more details why you're using a live attenuated approach for the pediatric rather than focusing on the pre-F candidate that is looking at site zero antibodies for older adults. Just the reason behind those two different approaches. Then maybe coming back to flu, and then thinking about the benefit of standard dose flu on hospitalizations and high-dose flu on hospitalizations. Could you give us an idea of the absolute reduction in hospitalizations for both those approaches? You've had the relative reduction on the slide, and therefore, what level of hospitalization protection you think we'd need to see from a new candidate such as mRNA here to really make a difference? Thanks very much.
Thank you, Richard. For the second one, I might come to you, Bill, in a second. You might be ready to take a mic and jump on the scene. For the first one on RSV toddler program, a very exciting program, first-in-class, best-in-class, as mentioned before. Jon Heinrichs was also with us by Zoom and was the scientific head behind our RSV programs. Please tell us what you think about the different approaches.
Thanks, Thomas. Very exciting program. You're right. It's an interesting question. Thank you for that. I would answer it by saying that since RSV's natural route of infection is through mucosal infection, that a live attenuated RSV vaccine that targets that same route is likely to produce the best response, both mucosally and systemically, to prevent disease. On top of that, we have several decades of experience from the field with live attenuated RSV vaccines to show that they're safe, that they're well-tolerated, and as Jean-François showed you, preliminary evidence to indicate that they are protective against both upper respiratory and lower respiratory tract disease. We think that this has the best chance of being successful for an infant vaccine approach. Whether or not an injectable vaccine could do the same really in toddlers is something that will have to be addressed pre-clinically and clinically.
For us, the best approach is to target the same route of infection as seen by natural disease.
Thank you, Jon. Bill, hospitalizations against flu, high dose and standard dose, relative efficacy versus absolute numbers.
Absolutely. Hello? Hello?
Yeah. It's good.
Okay. Thank you for the question. I think one of the things that we have to continue to remember is that standard of care in the baseline is a standard dose vaccine. One of the things we've done with our programs is we've always compared to that baseline and showed a relative performance and a relative efficacy advantage. We think that's really the way to go, and it's why it's important that these clinical trials upcoming continue to reference the standard of care and show the benefit. For health authorities and governments to make informed decisions, the questions they ask is, how much better is this product than what I'm giving? You really can't do that with absolute efficacy or absolute reductions. You have to do it in incremental gains or relative efficacy.
You have to do it across multiple seasons, across the endpoints that we talked about. That's really the advantage of relative efficacy and why we've chosen that path, and why we would encourage all the health authorities continue to use that and all these new candidate vaccines, including ours, to maintain that relative efficacy advantage.
Seeing it differently, Richard, flu is pretty much recommended every single where, every single place, every single country in the world above 65 and above. Ethically, you have to provide a flu vaccine. The standard dose or high dose, that could be discussed. We have our opinion, you know that. Definitely when you want to study with a new vaccine, flu is not COVID-19. We're not in a pandemic flu. You will have to do a relative efficacy.
The next question is from Graham Parry from Bank of America. Graham?
Great. Thanks. Thanks for taking my question. Firstly, could you clarify a few things on the mRNA flu phase I data that you showed, just to help us understand it better. The age of patients in the trial, the definition of seroconversion being used, is that fourfold increase in titers? And what the absolute geometric mean titer ratios translate to, sorry, ratios translate to in terms of absolute levels. How does this compare versus products that are out there on the market already? Secondly, on timelines, you highlighted first half of next year for modified mRNA monovalent to enter the clinic and second half for quadrivalent. Is the start of the latter contingent on the former? And is LNP optimization a rate-limiting step for both of those progressions to take place? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Graham. I'll go to you, Frank, first, on flu mRNA phase I, those different elements, and Jean-François, you can complete.
Thank you very much. I can actually start on the second part of the question, which is the timing for the monovalent versus quadrivalent, certainly. This is not dependent on the monovalent being done first or the results of that going into the quadrivalent. We're doing is we're taking a platform approach to this. As you saw with this first phase I clinical trial, we had multiple LNP candidates there, and we're assessing those. We're very happy with the performance of LNP number 2. Certainly, we have other additional LNPs actually that we're screening, and we plan on screening in the clinic across flu and other targets as well.
We anticipate learning as much as we can from that monovalent approach and hopefully applying that into the quadrivalent approach as we go forward, not just for phase I, of course, into phase III.
Yeah. On flu, Can you hear me okay?
It's coming now. On flu, just to address your question, the age was young adults, 18 to 45. This is the target group that we have in the trial here. Actually, in terms of translating the GMT ratio into titers, this is something that we did not want to provide today, and for a very specific reason, is that we know some people are tempted to extrapolate efficacy from GMT titers. We have shown here that you can have very high GMT and still fail in efficacy. We believe it is a wrong benchmark, actually. That's the reason why we didn't go there really and did not want to provide that.
On the top, we have generated data with different labs, different labs testing the same samples with those, apparently the same assay can have the result that differs by sevenfold. Again, telling you our GMT titers and try to compare versus prior trials or trials from competitors that are coming, we believe is not relevant. Again, the GMT ratio show where it starts from, how much of a seroconversion you have, how much of an increase you have. Seroconversion was defined as a four-fold increase, indeed.
Thank you very much.
Timelines. The timelines for the monovalent and quadrivalent. Did we answer that?
I think Frank answered saying that indeed we're going to test the monovalent first half. We will test multiple parameters, and yes, we will bring quadrivalent formulation the second half of next year.
Thanks.
Okay, we'll take the next questions from Geoffrey Porges at Leerink Partners. Geoffrey?
Maybe mute.
Okay, we will move to Tim Anderson at Wolfe. Tim?
Thank you. A couple of questions, please. On RSV older adult opportunity, you've described this as about a four and a half billion EUR opportunity. I'm wondering if it could actually be much less than this using the experience with pneumococcal conjugate vaccines in adults as a proxy. To me, there's a lot of similarities between pneumococcal pneumonia and RSV pneumonia in terms of things like incidence and morbidity and disease awareness among the population. PREVNAR has been on the market in adults for a number of years. Of the EUR 6 billion annually that it sells, only 25% of that is in adults, so that's about one and a half billion EUR. That one and a half billion EUR adult segment is not exactly growing. Why would RSV be any different?
The second question, just earlier you made the comment you didn't think a combination mRNA COVID plus mRNA flu vaccine is really a risk. If we assume that patients are going to need both shots annually, how can it not be a risk to have one product that could offer two diseases with just one shot? Competitors like Pfizer and Moderna are obviously ahead in mRNA understanding and ahead in terms of having a COVID product on the market.
Thank you very much, Tim. I'll be happy to take the second point on combination, which I believe we have addressed, but we can go back to it. Before we go there, Thomas, maybe you want to take the one on RSV older, the market size, your perspective on it versus an elderly pneumo market, which is around EUR 1.5 billion.
Sure. Thanks for the question. Yes, there is a connection between the two population, the two disease. Now, on PCV, as you say, there is 25% of the market is with adults, the rest is with infants. We see some growth in the adult segments. That's one of the driver we see. We think the market here can still grow. Specifically on RSV, contrary to PCV, it won't be one shot for the rest of the life. It would be a shot that would happen every three to five years, we believe. That's more recurring administration. That's why we are looking as well on adding other serotypes and adding a combination vaccines, adding potentially other disease in a combo to bring even more value and impact public health. I think we see nice potential.
We need the right product first, a monovalent and then a combination vaccines. We're convinced we can be competitive there.
Thank you.
Maybe building on Thomas' answer. I think it's very important you guys understand, yes, the two most advanced candidate in RSV older adult, they are more advanced than we are, but they are using a technology that will make it difficult for them to have a combo vaccine. That will take a whole full amount of time. That's why we decided to go with mRNA. With mRNA, we can bring additional viruses. By bringing them, we will also improve the economics of this vaccine.
Which is a great segue to the second question from Tim. If that's true, Jean-François, why aren't we smart enough to do a COVID-19 flu combo? Why aren't we scared about it on the flu market? Great question, Tim. To come back to it. For a combo to be successful, you need a few very important successful criteria. First of all, you need to be able to have them at the same immunization schedule. We do not believe that annual vaccination post-pandemic, so from 2024 and beyond, will be required against COVID-19. Second, even if you believe the immunization schedule will be the same every single year, you need to have the same level of protection than the best vaccine standalone on each disease.
Here we believe, back to the section we are on flu, that protection beyond flu was demonstrated with Flublok and with Fluzone High-Dose. We're very far from that with phase I flu mRNA candidate. Thirdly, you will need to show that you're not deteriorating in a combination vaccine, the actual adverse event profile. You've seen that you get from the study we've done head-to-head, 12.3 times more grade 3 adverse events with mRNA COVID-19 shot versus Fluzone High-Dose grade 3 adverse events. Last but not least, all the convenience factors that we've mentioned on mRNA will make it very impractical for a combo. I'm not saying that because it's a discovery. I want to be very clear. We at Sanofi Pasteur, we had a combination flu vaccine. For many years, we have sold in France a flu tetanus vaccine.
When I was the head of the franchise, that's the first thing I stopped, because I was a great loss maker every single year in this company. There are not enough people that are ready to take a combination vaccine with flu when the immunization schedule just don't match.
Thanks. The last two, three questions in the auditorium, the gentleman in row number 3. Now we can go to Simon.
Thank you. Dominic Lunn from Credit Suisse. Two on R&D and one on costs, if I can. Potentially a bit of focus on some of the assets or areas that we didn't talk about today. Before going into today, I think there was a bit of focus in the investor community on potentially combining mRNA and oncology. We didn't see that today. Is that just because it's not in the scope of today's vaccines day, or could that be something else you look at? Secondly, on viral vectors vaccines, you listed them in your toolbox, but there doesn't seem to be much talk about them. Do you see much opportunity here going forward, or do you see these more as maybe a less good version of the mRNA approach? Then finally on costs.
Clearly you're setting up the mRNA Center of Excellence, you'd hope to have a greater mix shift towards mRNA therapeutics going forward. Due to the kind of the highly fungible nature of manufacturing in this mechanism of action, is there an opportunity to drive down costs maybe in the longer term as you get a higher mix of mRNA?
Thank you very much. Great questions. On the first one, I'll shamefully take the easy one. It's indeed a vaccines day, that's why we didn't make the focus on it. However, it's a very important part, and we'll come back to it in a later stage. The second point was about viral vector. How do we see it positioned in our toolbox? Jean-François?
Yeah. Fairly easy, that one. I think if we need it, we're going to use it. Today, we don't see really an application of viral vectors for the new candidate that we have in the pipe, we master the technology, if it's needed, we're going to use it. As simple as that.
For the mRNA and the cost of goods, going to depend on the innovation you bring with your mRNA product. It starts by having the right product and the right target. That's why I was talking about the flu mRNA, I was mentioning before, the standard dose market versus the differentiated flu vaccine market. Yes, you can definitely work on the COGS. As I said before, also standard dose egg-based vaccines will remain cheaper in terms of cost of goods than any mRNA. Definitely when we go to flu, we're not going to be in multi-dose vials filling. You have to look at what will be the cost of goods, where raw materials is the important part of the cost of goods in mRNA, and when you start doing this fill and pack into syringes.
Overall, in the very long term with new vaccines and the right product, it could be an interesting COGS play. In the short term for flu, no. It's not we are addressing that.
I think we have another question from Simon.
Simon Lake from Redburn. A couple of slightly bigger picture questions on mRNA. Firstly, you gave a few examples where you've pivoted from unmodified to modified mRNA. Is there any role left for unmodified? If so, what are they? Secondly, on lipid nanoparticles. There was a paper out in early November suggesting that the lipid nanoparticles are having an adjuvant effect. I just wonder what your thoughts were on that, and if that's a tunable and selectable property. Related the question about lyophilization. I think it was Moderna said the reason they didn't produce their vaccine as a dry powder was a lack of global capacity for lyophilization. Where do we sit in normal time-
In normal times for capacity to produce these sorts of lyophilized powders on a sufficient scale. Thanks so much.
Thank you very much, Simon. Just on the last point, that's one of the advantages of having multiple vaccines, because we have a few vaccines that are already lyophilized within our portfolio, and that's how we can play with different platforms. Back to you guys for the first two questions. Frank, do you want to take the one on modified versus unmodified? Any role for unmodified? I'll come to you, Jean-François, for the other one.
Certainly. Thank you very much. We have made the switch to modified. We've generated data, as I mentioned earlier, with both. Of course, we've got a long history with unmodified and modified actually on this platform. We're leaving the door open because we have the ability to work with both. Right now our direction is with modified, but where we see an application for unmodified, we know we can play there immediately.
Yeah. On the adjuvant effect of lipid nanoparticles, I think you are completely right. Yes, we know they stimulate the immune system on their own. I think there was a slide that Frank has shown actually on the biomarkers, where we see that with the same mRNA, when we change the LNP, we see a different reduction in the inflammatory cytokines. Two things. Yes, that's why you need to play with multiple LNP. Actually, one LNP that works well in one population may not work in the other, because older adults, you may need something a bit more important, and that's why we're looking at multiple of them. Second point is about biomarkers. It's important we do what we do here. We generate biomarkers that will allow us to understand what LNP do so that we can really educate the next generation mRNA 2.0 and mRNA 3.0.
If I could just build a little bit on that also with the LNPs. There's a lot of components associated when you design an LNP, and one thing that we're really fortunate of is we've developed very large libraries with very diverse chemical structured ionizable lipids for different applications, not just intramuscular, but other ones as well. Then you take those and you combine those with your helper lipid, your cholesterol, et cetera, in different ratios. All of those things play a role in the effect of adjuvancy and potency and ultimately efficacy. So we've got a lot of experience on this team, both in terms of materials that we can utilize and employ right away, but also in terms of how to combine those to have the desired effect.
Good. Let's try the last question from the web.
We'll try again with Geoff Porges at Leerink Partners. Geoff?
Thank you very much for the question, and really appreciate you sharing all of this information today. First question, just on investment. You're doing a lot, lots of different programs. I'm just wondering if you could share with us a little bit about the amount of CapEx that you're going to have to make in vaccines in the next couple of years, and whether vaccines is going to be a net positive contributor to return on invested capital for the company or whether this is sort of an investment period for vaccines. Secondly, I just want to go back to the question of tolerability of mRNA vaccines. Could you give us a sense of whether you believe the tolerability issues that we're seeing with these first generation are due to principally the LNP or principally to the mRNA?
Do you believe that those tolerability issues are dose related? Because it would seem to be a potential limitation to these combinations, whether you can put five or six different antigens all containing their own mRNAs into one syringe, and achieve better tolerability. Thanks for both of those questions.
Thank you very much, Geoff. On the first one, it's always dangerous to respond to a group financial question in front of your CFO. I'll go to JB on the first one.
Thank you, Thomas. Geoffrey, you're right on that it will take a bit of CapEx. The new thing is that we are investing in new technologies in terms of manufacturing with our EVF, Evolutive Facility, which bring a real possibility to change very quickly from one manufacturing output to another. Yes, we will invest in those, and it's quite timely that we are really boosting our free cash flow generation, as you can see quarter after quarter. That will not dent our capacity to go on investing in science. Yes, there will be some investment because also to get to the growth level we are committed to and to double our presence in vaccine by 2030, we will need this capacity.
Great. Thank you.
Thank you, JB. mRNA tolerability, short response?
Again, here, we are very much convinced that both mRNA and LNP contribute to reactogenicity of mRNA vaccines. That's why we are making so many efforts in optimizing mRNA, in having a large library of LNP and in identifying biomarkers. We believe this is a winning equation, and that's why we're putting so much effort now. That's also why it will take a bit of time, and that's why we believe we are really in the race and we'll be competitive for sure.
Thank you. I'm now asking Paul back on stage just for a few concluding remarks. Thank you.
Okay, great. Thank you. Very conscious that we are a little bit over. Mainly driven by the great questions, I should point out. We said up front that we're going to more than double the overall size of the business in vaccines, more than. It's important for you to remember that. We are building a reputation for delivering on our commitments, whether it's DUPIXENT, whether it's the 8.5% or highest single-digit growth in vaccines. We are going to deliver on our commitments. Whether you enjoy the urban myths and legends that have been propelling around on mRNA, whether it's the booster market combinations, whether it's whatever is being fed into the marketplace on any given day. If you take a dispassionate look at the hypertransparency of today, which is our first time to address this audience since mRNAs were first approved at the end of last year.
You have to pause and reflect on that, because there's one thing operating in a pandemic, as has been said, with government support, government distribution, easy price negotiations, no policies, no procedures, no standard of care. It's a very different thing operating in established markets where payers need more convincing than they've ever done before. Whilst it may be possible to pivot to new platforms, and we're going to try it too, in mRNA very quickly, it takes decades to build a global capability to execute flawlessly on all aspects of accessing markets and bringing value to patients. We will be the market leader in RSV. We will be absolutely one of the winners in flu. We will bring 10 new candidates forward. More than half of them will be in mRNA. We will make the CapEx investments.
We won't get off our commitments that we've made through 2022 and 2025. You should at least understand that I believe that the capabilities in our vaccine business are truly extraordinary and are still underappreciated, and we'll see that. I want to thank my team, our team, their teams, for the truly excellent work today in sharing that. Look forward to outperforming and surprising everybody, and would encourage just a dispassionate reflection on some of the fundamentals of what drives these markets, particularly influenza, when you're sitting back and deciding what to write. Thank you for your attention today. Thanks to the team and thanks to everybody. I think there may be, for those on Zoom, I'm sorry, but for anybody here, there may be a drink available. We look forward to joining you there for a few more minutes. Thanks to all.
Thank you very much.
With this, we are concluding our event. Thank you for joining.