It is reported the UK government has turned its back on the Vaccine Manufacturing & Innovation Centre (VMIC), a facility setup in response to COVID-19 that never actually opened its doors. The UK Government’s Vaccine Taskforce launched several programs to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic as it emerged in early 2020, including one to address the country’s lack of vaccine manufacturing capacity. The VMIC in Harwell, about 50 miles west of London, planned to offer up to 70 million doses of…
Talent retention and attraction will be the biggest challenge firms face in 2022, says MilliporeSigma’s head of Process Solutions Andrew Bulpin. Talent shortages in the biopharma space have been globally reported with professionals forming a general consensus that the industry’s growth does not match the amount of talent coming through. While certain countries like Lithuania claim it has a talent pool ready and waiting, other global companies such as Lonza, SwedenBIO, pharma recruitment firm Lead Candidate, and Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult expressed their…
Resilience subsidiary Ology Bioservices has been awarded a $250 million contract by the US DOD to develop a monoclonal antibody as a medical countermeasure to botulinum neurotoxins. Under the terms of the deal, Ology Bioservices (acquired by San Diego-based contractor – National Resilience in April 2021) will advance the medical countermeasure (MCM) to the US Food and Drug administration (FDA), which will then be manufactured at commercial scale with stock distributed for military use. The firm’s site in Alachua, Florida,…
Merck & Co. says sales of its human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine franchise Gardasil could double by 2030 as “significant†capacity investments come online. For the full year, 2021, vaccines pulled in around $9.7 billion in sales revenues for Merck. The division was driven by Gardasil and Gardasil 9, which saw sales of $5.7 billion for the 12 months, up 44% on the year prior. As CFO Caroline Litchfield said during the firm’s end-of-year conference call, “underlying global demand for Gardasil…