EU Flags at the European Commission Building
A deal between one of the companies in the lead to develop a vaccine against the virus that causes Covid-19 has signed a deal to provide potentially more than 100 million doses to Europe.
Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Moderna said Monday that it had made a deal with the European Commission to supply 80 million doses of mRNA-1273, its messenger RNA-based vaccine against SARS-CoV-2. Member states would also be able to acquire an additional 80 million doses, for a total of 160 million. The vaccine is administered in two doses – a primer shot followed by a booster shot 29 days later.
“European partners, investors and citizens have been part of Moderna from the beginning of the company and have played an important role in Moderna’s progress,” Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel said in a statement. “We are scaling up our international manufacturing capacity outside of the United States with our strategic partners, Lonza in Switzerland and Rovi in Spain, to be in a position to address this global health emergency with a vaccine that is widely available once approved for use.”
Lonza and Rovi are contract manufacturers with which Moderna has partnered to produce supplies of the vaccine. The company said it was scaling up to produce about 500 million doses per year and potentially up to 1 billion starting next year.
The vaccine is currently in a Phase III trial enrolling 30,000 healthy adults, with enrollment scheduled to complete next month. The trial has 99 sites, all in the U.S. Two weeks ago, the company said that it had reached a deal worth more than $1.5 billion to supply 100 million doses of mRNA-1273 – with an option to supply 400 million more – to the federal government.
Other companies developing vaccines have made similar deals with governments in the U.S., Europe and Japan. French drugmaker Sanofi and its U.K.-based partner, GlaxoSmithKline, have an agreement to supply 100 million doses of their vaccine, while Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech have made a similar agreement for theirs, which like mRNA-1273 also targets messenger RNA.
Photo: sinonimas, Getty Images
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