Vaccine Development and Manufacturing

AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford have announced that they will collaborate on the global development and distribution of the university’s potential recombinant adenovirus vaccine aimed at preventing COVID-19 infection.

With funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Batavia’s low-cost vaccine manufacturing process will be used to produce Wistar’s drug substance and drug product formulations, to be distributed to vaccine manufacturers.

Merck will provide funding and will work with researchers at the Institute for Systems Biology to identify targets for therapeutic intervention and vaccine development.

A UK BioIndustry Association industry-led vaccine manufacturing group has welcomed a recent announcement by the government of the UK, that it will receive £14 million (US$17.3 million) in investment to rapidly scale up the development of vaccines for COVID-19.

The vaccine will be based on a ReiThera-proprietary simian adenoviral vector with strong immunological potency and low pre-existing immunity in humans.

A new strategic plan from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, details the institute’s plan for accelerating research to diagnose, prevent and treat COVID-19.

Emergent will offer up its drug substance manufacturing services with support by investments from Johnson & Johnson starting in 2020.

Through the agreement, BARDA will support the advancement of the vaccine candidate to FDA licensure and will handle all late-stage clinical development programs, as well as the scale-up of mRNA-1273 manufacture in 2020.

Dutch company HALIX has announced it is joining a consortium of partners that are all under the guidance of the University of Oxford to provide good manufacturing practice (GMP) manufacturing services for a COVID-19 vaccine.

Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) have revealed that they are joining forces to develop an adjuvanted vaccine using their respective technologies that can be used to fight COVID-19.

Biopharma companies responding to the COVID-19 outbreak think accelerating the development of vaccines is safe.

Pre-clinical immunization studies of iBio’s SARS-CoV-2 VLP candidates are being performed by Texas A&M.

In light of the current COVID-19 pandemic, the agencies co-chaired the first global regulators meeting to facilitate development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19.

Emergent BioSolutions will help develop and manufacture an oral vaccine candidate and will develop plasma-based antibody therapeutics.

An NIH study of a COVID-19 vaccine is enrolling Seattle-based healthy adult volunteers.

Through the agreement, Emergent will manufacture the vaccine, which is formulated based on Novavax’s proprietary recombinant protein nanoparticle technology platform and its Matrix-M adjuvant to boost immune responses.

WuXi Vaccines, WuXi Biologics’ joint venture with Shanghai Hile Bio-technology, has signed a 20-year vaccine manufacturing contract with a global vaccine leader for $3 billion.

Sanofi will use a recombinant DNA platform that produces a genetic match to proteins found on the surface of COVID-19 to formulate the vaccine.

The research community is moving quickly to launch clinical trials of potential countermeasures, while regulatory authorities aim to support product development through regulatory flexibility.

The vaccine is designed to provide active immunity against the influenza A (H5N1) strain and can be easily deployed in a pandemic event.

J&J’s Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies seeks to develop a vaccine candidate against the novel coronavirus.

FDA has granted fast track designation for Novavax’s NanoFlu, a recombinant quadrivalent flu vaccine, for use by adults age 65 years and older.

Sanofi Pasteur will expand clinical development and manufacturing of an adjuvanted recombinant pandemic vaccine at its site in Pennsylvania.

CPI has partnered with ImmunoBiology (ImmBio) for the development of a heat-stabilized formulation of a mutli-antigen vaccine candidate against Pneumococcal diseases.

Countries and partners have announced commitments to vaccinate 450 million children against polio each year and overcome barriers to reaching all children.