BRUSSELS: The European Commission announced Tuesday that it has concluded exploratory talks with Franco-Austrian biotechnology laboratory Valneva for the possible purchase of up to 60 million doses of its Covid-19 vaccine.

The EU executive has already signed contracts with six other laboratories and is also in discussions with US firm Novavax to secure 200 million doses. Once the negotiations with Novavax and Valneva are completed, Europe would have contracts with eight different laboratories for more than 2.5 billion doses.

The EU said the planned contract with Valneva would allow a collective purchase by all 27 EU member states of 30 million doses initially, with an option for an additional 30 million. Valneva’s vaccine was developed using a technology based on inactivated viruses, as opposed to the mRNA method used by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna.