Author Archives: Dan Stanton

Sanofi steps up to deliver 125m doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine

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Sanofi will carry out the fill and finish for up to 125 million doses of Pfizer/BioNTech’s mRNA vaccine from its facility in Frankfurt, Germany. In further evidence of Big Pharma working together to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Sanofi has agreed to help produce of Pfizer/BioNTech’s approved messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine. The vaccine will be made from a Sanofi fill-finish facility in Frankfurt, Germany. The facility is more akin to filling and finishing insulin for the French Biopharma but from…

January 27, 2021

Biocon: COVID dampens $1bn biosimilar sales target

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COVID-19 has caused regulatory inspection delays, operational slowdowns and lower consumption, diminishing Biocon’s aspiration of reaching $1 billion in annual biosimilar revenues. On paper, Biocon’s third quarter FY21 was positive. Sales grew 7% year-on-year to INR 1,879 crore ($258 million), with an 11% growth in biosimilars contributing INR 769 crore to the total. Quarter-over-quarter, biosimilar sales grew 14%, and Biocon’s presence in marketed biosimilars further grew with a number of approvals across various jurisdictions, including EMA recommendation for its insulin…

January 22, 2021

Podcast: Systemic racism in the biomanufacturing space

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Black and minority workers are consistently overlooked in the biomanufacturing industry due to unconscious – or perhaps conscious – racism, LucasPye Bio CEO Tia Lyles-Williams explains in The BioProcess Insider Expression System podcast. In the first episode of this new podcast series, Tia-Lyles Williams, CEO of LucasPye Bio, talks about diversity in the biopharma workplace and the hurdles that continue to hold back black and minority workers. Tia now leads a Philadelphia-based CDMO that recently raised $50 million in funding…

January 22, 2021

Oxford vaccine fill-finish site threatened by severe floods

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Wockhardt is operating as normal to supply AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine after being hit by a storm at its Wrexham, Wales, fill-finish facility. Storm Christoph has caused – and continues to cause – severe damage across North Wales, and yesterday hit a facility producing the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) run by Wockhardt UK. “Last night at approximately 1600 hours, Wockhardt UK experienced mild flooding, resulting in excess water surrounding part of the buildings across site,†the third-party manufacturer said in a statement.…

January 21, 2021

AstraZeneca: ‘Manufacturing should take lion’s share of credit for vaccine success’

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AstraZeneca says it has established more than 20 different supply nodes in parallel supply chains to roll out three billion doses of its COVID-19 vaccine this year. Late last month, the UK became the first jurisdiction to approve the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine (AZD1222) in its efforts against COVID-19. Mexico, Brazil and India are among the countries that have since followed suit, while an approval decision from the European Medicines Agency is expected by January 29. The vaccine, which uses the modified…

January 19, 2021

Thermo Fisher adds EU viral vector plants in €725m Novasep deal

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Thermo Fisher adds three Belgian facilities to its gene therapy contract manufacturing business. The sale is the latest divestment by Novasep. Thermo Fisher paid approximately €725 million ($878 million) to acquire Novasep’s Henogen viral vector manufacturing business, a business that brought in around €80 million in revenues in 2020. The deal bolsters Thermo Fisher’s gene therapy capabilities, adding 7,000 square meters of manufacturing space tand 400 staff through three facilities at two locations in Seneffe and Gosselies, Belgium. Thermo Fisher…

January 15, 2021

Double Dutch: Cristal and Intravacc team on vaccine tech

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The partnership looks to develop vaccines using Intravacc’s outer membrane vesicles (OMV) tech and Cristal Therapeutic’s copper-free click chemistry reagent with an initial target being COVID-19. The two companies will work together to develop novel vaccine programs with initial work during the evaluation period taking place at Cristal’s facility, followed by the further work conducted at Intravacc’s facility, both in the Netherlands. Financial details of the collaboration have not been divulged. Initially, the partnership is targeting a vaccine against COVID-19.…

January 15, 2021

Sanofi: ‘Vaccine heritage puts us in good stead to play in gene therapy space’

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Sanofi says it is looking to resolve the “patchy†accomplishments in the gene therapy space through a new specialized unit that will leverage technologies from its vaccine division. Sanofi has dabbled in the cell and gene therapy over the past decade but is yet to make its mark. Speaking at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference this week, CEO Paul Hudson highlighted the importance of the sector going forward but admitted industry’s success in the sector has “been patchy.†He told…

January 13, 2021

Thermo Fisher reports $6bn+ COVID windfall in 2020

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Thermo Fisher says it supported over 250 coronavirus-related programs in 2020, generating “well over $6 billion†in COVID-19 response revenue. Speaking at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, held virtually for the first time in its nearly 40 year history, Thermo Fisher Scientific CEO Marc Casper described 2020 as the “best year yet†for his firm, representing an “extraordinary performance in the most challenging of times.†The multinational offers a broad spectrum of biopharma services, all of which saw a surge…

January 12, 2021

COVID vaccine success accelerating the mRNA space, MilliporeSigma

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MilliporeSigma has bolstered its messenger RNA (mRNA) manufacturing offering with the addition of German CDMO AmpTec and its polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based technology. The deal, financials of which have not been divulged, went through last week and plays into MilliporeSIgma’s strategy to expand its mRNA manufacturing services for both therapeutic modalities and diagnostics. The “technology acquisition,†as MilliporeSigma spokeswoman Rachel Bloom-Baglin describes the deal, comes fresh on the arrival of the first two mRNA vaccines. The US FDA approved both…

January 11, 2021