Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson visited Valneva’s manufacturing site in Livingston in January 2021 – eight months before the vaccine deal was scrapped
A Covid vaccine contract that was scrapped by the UK government cost taxpayers £358.6m, new figures show.
Financial documents filed by Valneva show she received hundreds of millions of pounds in non-refundable payments.
The UK government reached a final settlement with Valneva last year and no more money is owed to the firm.
Ministers said at the time that any further details of that resolution were commercially confidential.
Meanwhile, Valneva has revealed that it is now considering selling the Almeida cannery in Livingston, which it built to manufacture the Covid vaccine.
The UK government ended its vaccine deal with Valneva in September 2021 due to allegations of a breach of the agreement – which was “vehemently denied” by the biotech firm.
There are details of how much the UK government paid Wave contained in a file made to the United States government agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It said Valneva received a total of €420.6 million (£358.6 million) as part of the vaccine supply agreement with the UK government.
This was split into €47.5m (£40.5m) in a “settlement agreement” after the deal was terminated; €78m (£66.5m) capital expenditure; and the rest in non-refundable production cost payments.
The UK government previously said the cancellation of the Valneva deal had not affected the distribution of Covid vaccines across the country.
Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach delivers a speech at the 2022 plant
Valneva employs about 190 people in Livingston. Its existing operations in the city are not affected by the potential sale of the Almeida cannery.
The French firm has already hired a commercial property firm to explore options for the 75,000 sq ft facility, which was built to the high technical standards required for vaccine production.
Last month, Valneva CEO Thomas Lingelbach told Bloomberg News that about a dozen potential buyers had expressed interest in the site.
Under the original deal between Valneva and the UK government, the French firm had an obligation to repay £69.8 million of the advances received in the event that the Almeida plant was sold or transferred from Covid vaccine production.
According to the financial statement presented by Valneva, this obligation expired on December 31 last year.
Last year, Scottish Enterprise awarded Valneva up to £20m in grants to support its future growth and vaccine development.
A total of £4.3 million of this support from the Scottish Economic Development Agency has been withdrawn so far.
A spokesperson for Valneva said the firm is “exploring options for its Almeida manufacturing facility in Livingston, originally built to produce its Covid-19 vaccine, including a possible sale or repurposing to produce its Japanese encephalitis vaccine and its chikungunya vaccine. if approved’.