US biotech Moderna has signed a ten-year manufacturing collaboration with Lonza for its Covid-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273, as well as future Moderna products.
The biotech will leverage Lonza’s manufacturing in the United States and Switzerland beginning in June this year.
Moderna’s mRNA Covid-19 vaccine is one of the furthest along in clinical trials; it applied for FDA approval to progress to Phase II studies if . To date, the programme has received funding and support from the US Govt through BARDA, as well as through CEPI.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel noted: “We are very pleased to partner with Lonza, which shares our commitment to rapidly addressing this pandemic which has created a global health crisis.
“This long-term strategic collaboration agreement will enable Moderna to accelerate, by ten-times, our manufacturing capacity for mRNA-1273 and additional products in Moderna’s large clinical portfolio.
Lonza’s global presence and expertise are critical as we scale at unprecedented speed. Our common goal is to potentially enable manufacturing of up to one billion doses of mRNA-1273.”
Lonza chairman and interim CEO Albert M. Baehny added: “Moderna’s technology represents a significant opportunity to change the way we protect people against disease.
“The current pandemic illustrates the need to combine the best science with resilient supply chains that can scale.
“We are fully committed to leveraging our global network and experience in manufacturing technologies to support Moderna’s manufacture of mRNA-1273 as well as collaborating on future Moderna products.”
