Up to 50 jobs axed at £200m vaccine plant

Up to 50 jobs are to be axed at a vaccine factory set up with more than £200 million of public money.

French pharmaceutical firm Valneva, which employs around 200 people in Livingston, said between 20-25% of roles are under threat.

The restructure, which aims to save the company £10.5m a year, comes after manufacture of the firm’s Covid vaccine was suspended in August when an order for 60 million doses from the European Commission was cut to just 1.25m.

The UK Government cancelled its order for 100m doses last September, despite giving Valneva £214m in non-refundable payments to set up the Scottish facility.

The Scottish Government also awarded millions of pounds to Valneva after first minister Nicola Sturgeon held talks with chief executive Thomas Lingelbach.

Last February, economic development agency Scottish Enterprise announced Valneva was to get £12.5m to develop and make its Covid vaccine, as well as a £7.5m grant to support vaccines for other diseases. The firm had drawn down £4.3m when manufacturing of the Covid vaccine was halted, and that cash could now be clawed back.

Scottish Labour Lothians MSP Foysol Choudhury said: “These job losses will be devastating for the plant’s workers, and will come as a major blow to the whole community. The loss of these crucial highly-skilled jobs are particularly worrying at a time of economic turmoil and soaring bills.

“This debacle raises serious questions about the public money spent propping up a company that is slashing jobs.”

Allan Wilson, who is past president of the Institute of Biomedical Science (IBMS) and a biomedical scientist for NHS Scotland, said: “While this pandemic is still live and we’re planning for another one, cutting jobs at this facility seems to be a short-sighted decision.

“It’s obviously a commercial decision because they’ve got the facility to make this Covid vaccine but they’ve got very few people wanting it.”

Valneva announced on Thursday it was reducing its workforce by 20-25% and the firm said: “The figures for Livingston are in line with the rest of the company.”

Lingelbach said: “The re-sizing of our operations will allow us to increase efficiency and focus on achieving our operational and strategic business objectives.”

Scottish Enterprise said: “We are working closely with Valneva to ascertain whether this will have any implications in terms of our grant support.”

The UK Government said it could not comment because of commercial confidentiality while the Scottish Government said: “Those affected are our immediate priority and, should there be job losses, the Scottish Government will do everything in its power to help those affected through its initiative for responding to redundancy situations.”