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 to provide 220M COVID-19 vaccine doses to African Union
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…
India curbs COVID-19 vaccine exports as infections rise
After the number of COVID-19 infections began to incline steeply, India has decided to retain most of the vaccines produced in the country. The country has also announced plans to lower the eligibility requirements to all citizens 45 or older starting April 1. The Serum Institute of India is one of the world’s biggest vaccine…
EU threatens to tighten COVID-19 vaccine exports
The European Union announced plans to invoke emergency rules that could substantially reduce exports to the United Kingdom and other countries for six weeks. AstraZeneca, a central provider of vaccines to the European Union, had reduced EU projected shipments to the EU after encountering production delays at plants in Belgium and the Netherlands. AstraZeneca will…
Catalent to produce J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine in Indiana
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…
It’s time to rethink pharma supply chains
Global supply chains have arguably seen more disruption in the past year than they have seen in decades. Pharmaceutical supply chains were especially vulnerable in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, prompting a rethink of supply chain management for the industry. Another wrinkle is a recent executive order from President Biden, which prompted a…
EU secures four million additional doses of Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine
The European Commission has announced that it has secured four million more COVID-19 vaccine doses than it had expected to be delivered over the next two weeks. The vaccines will help E.U. “tackle coronavirus hotspots,” “facilitate free border movement” and fight COVID-19 variants. The E.U. has been involved in a recent vaccine-related tussle with the…
Thermo Fisher Scientific to spend $600M to boost bioprocessing production capabilities
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 to make Moderna COVID-19 vaccine in US
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…
Moscow ramping up COVID-19 vaccination
More than half a million people in Moscow have received the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine or about 4% of its population. Now, Russia is aiming to both ramp up domestic vaccinations and exports of its Sputnik V vaccine. Moscow has been one of the few cities that has had a surplus of COVID-19…