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Joseph Prezioso / AFP via Getty Images
Moderna said it has partnered with Catalent to make the Covid-19 vaccine that the biotech company is about to test in the country’s first major clinical trial.
Although the vaccine’s large-scale safety and efficacy have not yet been proven, the urgency of the coronavirus pandemic is driving companies to prepare for production of 100 million doses for the September quarter of this year. In a press release, Moderna chief technical officer Juan Andrés said production expansion was proceeding with “unprecedented speed.”
“It has been wonderful to see both teams working together to support the common good,” he said.
On Thursday morning, Moderna’s shares (ticker: MRNA) fell 2% to $ 63.40, while Catalent’s (CTLT) shares rose 3% to $ 72.55. Like many Americans, investors are anxious about recent spikes in the Covid cases.
Catalent will fill and complete the vials of the Moderna vaccine, which contains strands of the messenger RNA genetic code that will instruct human cells to produce peak-like proteins in a SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. That similarity will cause users’ immune systems to produce protective antibodies.
Check out our recent cover story about Covid vaccines:Within Science and Companies Racing to develop a Covid-19 vaccine
The deal is Catalent’s fourth contract manufacturing agreement with a vaccine developer Covid. It also has production plans with Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), AstraZeneca (AZN), and Arcturus Therapeutics (ARCT), all of which will need to conduct clinical trials before obtaining marketing approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Catalent went public in 2014. It is comprised of businesses that the Blackstone Group acquired seven years before Cardinal Health..
As described in congressional testimony this week by federal vaccine czar Anthony Fauci, drug makers are accelerating the country’s Covid response by risking investment in manufacturing before drug trials are conducted. That way, a Covid vaccine could be available in early 2021, an unprecedented acceleration for a vaccine development process that previously took years. Even with manufacturing shortcuts, Fauci and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn promised that vaccine safety reviews will not be compromised.
The Moderna mRNA vaccine candidate is one of several that are testing Covid’s mRNA technology. Others include a team made up of BioNTech (BNTX) and Pfizer (PFE), a team from Sanofi (SNY) and Translate Bio (TBIO), Arcturus, and a UK government-backed project at the Imperial College School of Medicine .
Write to Bill Alpert at [email protected]
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