15th April 2021 – Scalling up global manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines, and supplying them to people as quickly as possible, is at the heart of COVAX efforts and the pandemic. At the Gavi COVAX AMC investment opportunity launch event, hosted by the US government (USAID) and Gavi, Biological E’s managing director, Ms. Mahima Datla, elaborated on the company’s commitments to manufacture two COVID-19 vaccines: one is a subunit vaccine from own internal development and a second, is a vector-based vaccine in collaboration with Janssen. Both vaccines are expected to become available towards the end of 2021. “We believe we are on target to produce about one billion doses” she stated at the Gavi event. Three steps were key for Biological E to meet the huge demand: firstly, ability to repurposing existing large production capacity, without impacting supply of routine vaccines; secondly, early planning in ordering raw materials and consumables was implemented; thirdly, the fill-finish capacity was expanded for other reasons, just before the pandemic, which enabled to have filling capacity coincidentally ready for COVID vaccines.
Maximizing access to COVID vaccines is a priority for all and COVAX is able to facilitate distribution of vaccines to over 100 countries to control the pandemic worldwide and benefit everyone equitably. The vaccine industry is committed to passing on the funding received from investors, such as CEPI, philanthopic foundations or governments, in form of vaccine doses to all countries to benefit, reinforcing global solidarity.
More information at https://www.gavi.org/gavi-covax-amc-launch-event-april-2021
