Coronavirus vaccine update: Moderna has signed a deal with Catalent for large-scale manufacturing of its vaccine candidate. Catalent will provide vial filling and packaging capacity as well as additional workforce required for 24X7 manufacturing operations.
The leading contenders for a coronavirus vaccine have made considerable headway in search for a vaccine candidate. While the general opinion of most experts and pharmaceutical companies is that a corona vaccine would be ready by mid-2021, researchers are still hoping for a 2020 breakthrough. The WHO, however, said that they are expecting a COVID vaccine by no sooner than a year. “It would be very difficult to say for sure that we will have a vaccine. We never had a vaccine for a coronavirus. So this will be, when discovered, hoping that it will be discovered, it will be the first one. Hoping that there will be a vaccine, the estimate is we may have a vaccine within one year. If accelerated, it could be even less than that, but by a couple of months. That’s what scientists are saying,” said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Moderna that is entering Phase III of its trials in July for its mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine is optimistic of receiving FDA approval. The company has signed a deal with Catalent for large-scale manufacturing of its vaccine candidate. Catalent will provide vial filling and packaging capacity as well as additional workforce required for 24X7 manufacturing operations. Catalent is already in partnership with Johnson and Johnson as well as AstraZeneca.
