Contract Manufacturing

President Joe Biden announced that the U.S. is set to provide $4 billion to the COVAX Facility to support access to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. Money appropriated by a December 2020 Congressional vote will comprise an initial $2 billion contribution to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance for the COVAX advance market commitment (AMC) covering 92…

U.S. government agencies announced that they purchased a total of 200 million additional doses of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA). The orders of 100 million doses from each of the only two FDA-authorized vaccines in the U.S. were made by the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept. (HHS) and the Defense Dept. (DoD). The U.S. has…

Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) CEO Alex Gorsky said people may need COVID-19 vaccines annually, like flu shots, over the next several years. Speaking to CNBC, Gorsky cited the mutations and variants of the disease, several of which have already landed in the U.S., as the driving force behind differentiating capabilities of the vaccine to fight off…

Merck KGaA (OTCMKTS:MKKGY) announced that it’s expanding its partnership with BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX) to supply lipids for the Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The agreement will accelerate the supply of lipids and increase the amount of lipid delivery toward the end of 2021 so they can be used as part of the drug delivery system of mRNA therapies…

Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) shares ticked up this morning on fourth-quarter results that were mixed compared to the consensus forecast. The Paris-based company posted profits of $1.3 billion, or $1.03 per share, on sales of $11.3 billion, marking a -2.4% year-over-year revenue decline for the three months ended Dec. 31, 2020. Adjusted to exclude one-time items, earnings per…

Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) announced today that it entered into an agreement to support the manufacturing and supply of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine is one of two to receive FDA emergency use authorization in the U.S. and it also has clearance in Europe, having received both nods in December 2020. The deal between Sanofi…

Included in President Joe Biden’s sprawling strategy document for dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic are an array of plans intended to ramp up vaccination efforts. Also in the plan are proposals for accelerating the development of therapies such as antiviral compounds effective against SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses with pandemic potential. The “full-scale, wartime” plans have considerable relevance…

Manufacturers of vaccine supplies and personal protective equipment can expect more work as the new Biden administration rolls out its plans to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. In one of his first official acts as president, Joe Biden announced a plan to “fully use” the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of testing supplies, masks,…

Catalent (NYSE:CTLT) has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase a dry-powder inhaler (DPI) capsule manufacturing and packaging facility from Acorda Therapeutics (NSDQ:ACOR). The acquisition will enable Catalent to establish a center of excellence for spray-dried dispersion for DPI capsule manufacturing. The transaction will also expand Catalent’s existing U.S.-based commercial-scale capabilities in metered-dose inhalers and nasal…

Halix has inked an agreement with AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) for large-scale drug substance manufacture of AZD1222, the adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine. The privately owned Dutch contract development and manufacturing organization will carry out the manufacturing services from its cGMP facility at the Leiden Bio Science Park.  The company has expanded the facility with two additional viral…