Halix to help make AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine

By Brian Buntz | December 8, 2020

Halix 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 vector production lines.

The University of Oxford and its spinoff Vaccitech invented the AZD1222 vaccine. Halix was an original member of a consortium of organizations involved in the manufacture of the vaccine, which trails vaccine candidates from Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna (NSDQ:MRNA) in terms of commercialization. Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could win emergency use authorization in the U.S. this week, while FDA could grant Moderna’s vaccine candidate the same status later in the month.

About The Author

Brian Buntz

The pharma and biotech editor of WTWH Media, Brian is a veteran journalist with more than 15 years of experience covering an array of life science topics, including clinical trials, drug discovery and development and medical devices. Before coming to WTWH, he served as content director focused on connected devices at Informa. In addition, Brian covered the medical device sector for 10 years at UBM. At Qmed, he overhauled the brand’s news coverage and helped to grow the site’s traffic volume dramatically. He had previously held managing editor roles on two of the company’s medical device technology publications. Connect with him on LinkedIn or email at bbuntz@wtwhmedia.com.