Chris Newmarker

A combination of digital tools, improved production equipment, and advanced instrumentation helped COVID-19 vaccines to roll out in record time. Ben Arriola and Zach Blum, Emerson There is little doubt that researchers will study the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects from countless angles in the decades to come. Few events in modern times have had…

Emergent BioSolutions was not prepared to take on the mammoth task of churning out millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses to support U.S. efforts to end the pandemic, according to a report published today in The New York Times. Emergent was ill-equipped despite a $163 million federal contract to prepare the facility for high-volume production, according…

Sanofi announced today that it will spend €600 million ($685 million) on a new plant in Toronto to produce its differentiated influenza vaccines. The Paris-based pharma giant’s Fluzone high-dose quadrivalent influenza vaccine has four times more antigen than a standard-dose vaccine. The vaccine’s creators specifically designed it to provide superior protection against influenza for older…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with the African Vaccine Acquisition Trust (AVAT)  to make 220 million COVID-19 vaccine doses available to the 55 African Union member countries. AVAT also has the potential to order an additional 180 million doses to bring the total to 440 million through…

Catalent will produce millions of extra doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine at its recently expanded Bloomington, Ind. facility, according to a statement posted on LinkedIn. Bloomberg broke the news yesterday, reporting that FDA has authorized the use of the facility to make the J&J vaccine. Catalent announced late last year that it would…

Sotera Health (NASDAQ:SHC) recently announced that it has acquired Bozeman, Mont.–based BioScience Laboratories in a deal that will expand the U.S.-based antimicrobial and antiviral testing capabilities of Sotera Health’s Nelson Labs business. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed in the March 10 announcement. BioScience Laboratories provides topical antimicrobial product testing in the…

Thermo Fisher Scientific (NYSE:TMO) will spend more than $600 million to expand its bioprocessing production capabilities through 2022, the Waltham, Mass.–based company said today. Investments will more than double Thermo Fisher’s manufacturing capacity so that it can better support biopharma customers ramping up to meet not only short-term demands related to COVID-19 but also long-term…

Baxter announced that its Baxter BioPharma Solutions business will make Moderna‘s COVID-19 vaccine at its fill/finish sterile manufacturing facilities in Bloomington, Ind. The plan — announced yesterday — is for Baxter to make 60–90 million doses of the Moderna vaccine in 2021. “We have seen a remarkable demonstration of scientific and health care expertise in…

President Joe Biden today plans to sign an executive order for a comprehensive review of U.S. supply chains for active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and other products. The order includes an immediate 100-day review across federal agencies to address vulnerabilities in the supply chains related to APIs and three other key products — critical minerals, semiconductors…

Medtech and pharma components supplier Qosina announced that CEO Scott Herskovitz has been elected as an at-large board director of the Bio-Process Systems Alliance (BPSA). The BPSA, an affiliated organization of the Society of Chemical Manufacturers & Affiliates (SOCMA), is an international industry association dedicated to encouraging and accelerating the adoption of single-use manufacturing technologies…