July 23, 2020 - BioPharma Dive
Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult, a biotech accelerator group in the U.K., said Thursday that it will receive nearly $130 million worth of funding from the government there to build a manufacturing center aimed at speeding up production of a successful vaccine for the new coronavirus.
The center will be located in Braintree, Essex, at an existing facility upgraded to have the capacity to produce millions of vaccine doses each month. Scheduled to open in December 2021, the center is meant to respond to both the current coronavirus pandemic as well as future ones, according to a statement from CGTC.
July 22, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
The Trump administration's Warp Speed initiative has placed its biggest bet yet on an accelerated COVID-19 vaccine—and Pfizer and BioNTech are the lucky recipients.
The vaccine partners
landed
an initial order from the U.S government for 100 million doses of their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine at the eye-popping price tag of $1.95 billion, they said in a joint release Wednesday.
July 20, 2020 - Fierce Pharma
COVID-19 frontrunners have been inking deals with governments and others to supply vaccines if their programs succeed, and now niche player Valneva is getting involved.
Valneva on Monday said it
reached
an agreement in principle with the U.K. government to supply up to 100 million doses of its vaccine candidate, which will be produced in Scotland. An inactivated whole virus vaccine, the candidate uses the same platform as Ixiaro, Valneva’s FDA-approved vaccine for protection against Japanese encephalitis.
July 20, 2020 - Fierce Biotech
GlaxoSmithKline has
handed
CureVac £234 million ($294 million) to collaborate on the use of mRNA to prevent and treat infectious diseases. The deal, which excludes CureVac’s COVID-19 vaccine, sets GSK up to source up to five clinical-phase mRNA-based vaccines and monoclonal antibodies.
CureVac, supported by its billionaire backer Dietmar Hopp, went years without striking the sort of headline-grabbing, big-ticket deals that helped put its mRNA rivals BioNTech and Moderna on the map. In 2017, CureVac signaled a change in its deal-making plan when Daniel Menichella replaced Karen Slobod as CEO of its U.S. operation. Months later, CureVac landed a deal with Eli Lilly.
