Despite Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson’s confidence in vaccines, the French pharma has cut at least one mRNA flu shot program.
Even as CEO Paul Hudson expressed confidence in Sanofi’s vaccine business, the company appears to be pulling back from its mRNA flu immunization program.
“Sanofi has deprioritized its mRNA-based seasonal flu vaccine program and does not anticipate launching an mRNA-based seasonal flu product in the near term,” a company spokesperson told Fierce Biotech on Thursday, which first reported the news. Sanofi revealed in its full-year 2025 report that it had pulled the plug on a Phase I asset in this portfolio.
The investigational vaccine, dubbed SP0237, was a hexavalent mRNA-based shot for seasonal flu. According to the company’s pipeline update in July 2025, the asset was in a Phase I/II trial to test safety and immunogenicity in older adults 50 years and up. The study, according to an online federal trials database, remains active but is not recruiting, and is set to complete in April this year. It is unclear whether Sanofi still plans to release findings from the trial.
Despite putting its mRNA flu program on the backburner, the pharma “remains fully committed to mRNA technology as a key part of our multi-platform vaccine development strategy,” the spokesperson qualified.
This latter statement jibes with what Hudson told reporters during a press call on Thursday morning. Despite growing skepticism in the U.S.—and a notable downward trend in the company’s vaccine sales—Hudson asserted that vaccines are “the number one gift to public health.”
“It doesn’t change just because of the debates that are happening,” he added.
Since taking the helm at the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has put in place conflicting and controversial policies that have rolled back vaccine access for many. In May 2025, he removed COVID-19 vaccines from the routine immunization recommendations for healthy pregnant women and healthy children. Weeks later, he emptied the CDC’s vaccines advisory panel—before reforming the group with known vaccine critics or conflicts of interest.
Kennedy has also publicly cast doubt on the efficacy and safety of vaccines, stoking skepticism among the public.
As a result, many vaccine developers have seen declining vaccine revenue. Sanofi, for instance, reported a 2.5% year-on-year dip in vaccine sales, with earnings slowing down across almost its entire portfolio, including its respiratory syncytial virus antibody Beyfortus and its polio, pertussis and hemophilus influenza products.
Kennedy has particularly taken aim at mRNA technology, too. In August, he withdrew funding from 22 mRNA-based research contracts, including one proposal from Sanofi. A few days later, Kennedy clarified that this pullback was focused on projects for upper respiratory diseases, and that the health department would continue supporting mRNA development for cancer.
