Vaccine Development and Manufacturing

Aji Bio-Pharma launched Ajility, a flexible platform for manufacturing vaccines and therapies.

The guidance document provides recommendations regarding data needed for the manufacturing, development, and approval of a COVID-19 vaccine.

The refurbishment provides enhanced glass melting power, improved glass distribution, and the production of transparent and amber type I glass bottles to meet the increase in demand for glass vials for vaccines and life-saving medicines.

The company’s oral COVID-19 vaccine has been chosen to participate in a non-human primate challenge study organized and funded by Operation Warp Speed.

The test results could potentially be used in the development of COVID-19 vaccines and the screening of convalescent plasma for prophylactic and therapeutic use.

Catalent will offer vial filling, packaging capacity, and additional staffing at the site to support the production of the initial 100 million doses of the vaccine candidate to supply the US market beginning in the third quarter of 2020.

The company has expanded its laboratory test portfolio with five new molecular, serology, and functional assays for COVID-19 vaccine and therapy development programs.

Symbiosis Pharmaceutical Services has signed a supply agreement with AstraZeneca for the sterile manufacture of AZD1222, a COVID-19 recombinant adenovirus vaccine, to be used in clinical trials.

Inovio received a $71-million contract from the US Department of Defense to scale up manufacture of its Cellectra smart device to deliver its DNA vaccine.

The companies are expanding their existing collaboration and license agreement to develop mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases.

The company will invest EUR 610 million (USD$682 million) into a new vaccine production site and research center in France.

Cobra Biologics has signed a supply agreement to provide GMP manufacturing for AstraZeneca’s AZD1222 COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Valneva will manufacture the Sabin vaccine strains for clinical trials in its manufacturing facility in Solna, Sweden, using Batavia’s process.

Catalent will provide vial filling and packaging capacity to AstraZeneca at its manufacturing facility in Anagni, Italy, for the large-scale commercial manufacturing of the University of Oxford’s adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

Oxford Biomedica, has signed a collaboration agreement with the not-for-profit organization, the Vaccines Manufacturing and Innovation Centre, to provide the UK with its first strategic vaccine development and advanced manufacturing capability.

The candidates will be used by the Vaccine Research Center, part of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.

Catalent will use its GPEx cell line development technology to create a cell line expressing the recombinant VLP at its Madison, WI facility.

Novavax announces DoD contract to produce 10 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine candidate.

The European Commission is pledging EUR 300 million (US$339 million) to Gavi for vaccines for infectious diseases, in addition to an earlier pledge of more than EUR 1.5 billion (US$1.7 billion) made on May 4, 2020.

SiO2 Materials Science has received $143 million from the US government to accelerate capacity scale-up of its advanced primary packaging platform.

The new vaccine would be made with a Newcastle disease virus vector that expresses the immunogenic spike protein of SARS-CoV-2

The Gavi advance market commitment for COVID-19 vaccines is a new financing instrument aimed at incentivizing vaccine manufacturers to produce sufficient and affordable quantities of COVID-19 vaccines.

Despite the clear danger of COVID-19 to global health, vaccine opponents have gained ground, as fearful populations lose faith in the capabilities of industry and government to protect public health.

The acquisition gives Novovax an annual operating capacity of more that one billion doses of COVID-19 vaccine antigen.

The company announced that it has been issued a task order under a present contract with BARDA to use its contract development and manufacturing capabilities and knowledge to assist in the US government’s efforts to deliver COVID-19 vaccines.

Merck will acquire Themis Bioscience and collaborate with IAVI and Ridgeback Bio on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies.

Merck will use Themis’s vector platform to develop a vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

Advent manufactured the vaccine doses for the Phase 2/3 clinical trial.

The White House looks to bring in credible experts for its Operation Warp Speed initiative to advance therapies and vaccines to combat the coronavirus pandemic.

The company announced that participants have enrolled in a Phase 1/2 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, NVX‑CoV2373, a prefusion protein made using Novavax’s proprietary nanoparticle technology.