Novavax is racing against some of the
world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies in its COVID-19 vaccine effort,
and the biotech has now brought on a partner to manufacture its
adjuvant.
The company enlisted
Japanese contract development and manufacturing organization AGC
Biologics to scale up and produce its Matrix-M adjuvant, a component of
the novel coronavirus vaccine candidate NVX-CoV2373. The partners aim to
deliver vaccine doses in 2020 and 2021, AGC says.
AGC is working to “quickly” ramp up the
adjuvant supply amid the pandemic, CEO Patricio Massera said in a
statement, adding that the urgency “could not be higher.”
Novavax has one of the 10 COVID-19
vaccines in human trials, and more than 120 others are in preclinical
testing, according to a Tuesday update from the World Health Organization. The company has scored up to $384 million for its work from the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), and last month inked a $167 buyout to bolster its manufacturing capacity.
Other big players involved in
the COVID-19 vaccine race are Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Sanofi and
AstraZeneca. Moderna, a biotech that hasn’t yet won approval for any of
its therapies or vaccines, is also among frontrunners with
late-stage trials planned this year.
Aside from COVID-19, Novavax is
also involved in research against RSV, Ebola and other diseases. The
company hasn’t yet scored any FDA approvals, but it’s getting ready to
file its flu vaccine, NanoFlu, after posting positive phase 3 data back in March. The flu vaccine also uses Novavax’s Matrix-M adjuvant.
The AGC Biologics tie-up comes right on the heels of the CDMO’s purchase of a former AstraZeneca plant in Boulder, Colorado. AGC will begin commercial production there by April 2021.
The site houses two 20,000-liter
mammalian cell bioreactors, with room for up to four more for potential
future expansions. Aside from that site, AGC is completing expansion
projects in Seattle, Copenhagen and Chiba, Japan, by the end of 2021,
the company says.
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