Sanofi to dedicate its site in Ridgefield, New Jersey to perform fill and finish operations for up to 200 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine
Sanofi to help manufacture Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. (Credit: Ali Raza from Pixabay.)
French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi has reached an agreement with Moderna to leverage its infrastructure and expertise to manufacture the latter’s Covid-19 vaccine.
Under the terms of the agreement, Sanofi will dedicate its site in Ridgefield, New Jersey to perform fill and finish operations for up to 200 million doses of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine, beginning from September 2021.
Sanofi said that the agreement with Moderna marks its third commitment to provide manufacturing support, following BioNTech and Johnson & Johnson.
Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said: “Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have been mobilising on multiple fronts and we showed solidarity across the industry.
“We are one of the few pharmaceutical companies to leverage many industrial partnerships to improve global supply and access to Covid-19 vaccines, while in parallel, also continuing to develop our two Covid-19 vaccine programmes.
“I would also like to acknowledge the contributions of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Biden administration, to facilitate this new partnership.”
Earlier this year, the company has agreed to support BioNTech in manufacturing 125 million doses for the European Union.
In February this year, Sanofi dedicated one of its French manufacturing sites to support the production of the Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccine at a rate of around 12 million doses per month.
The current manufacturing agreement is supported by the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
Furthermore, the company has collaborated with GSK to develop a new adjuvanted Covid-19 vaccine candidate.
The vaccine leverages recombinant protein-based manufacturing technology, combined with GSK’s pandemic adjuvant platform.
In addition to collaboration with GSK, Sanofi is developing a messenger RNA (mRNA)-based Covid-19 vaccine in partnership with Translate Bio.