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FRANKFURT, March 29 (Reuters) - GlaxoSmithKline has
agreed in principle to handle the final part of the
manufacturing process for up to 60 million doses of Novavax's
COVID-19 vaccine for use in Britain, widening the
company's role in the fight against the pandemic.
GSK said in a statement on Monday it would step in from May
for the final production steps and bottling into vials known as
'fill and finish' at its Barnard Castle facility in the
northeast of England, without compromising supply of other vital
medicines and vaccines.
A detailed agreement with the U.S. biotech firm Novavax and
the UK government's Vaccines Taskforce has yet to be signed, it
added.
Britain struck a deal to buy 60 million doses of Novavax’s
vaccine candidate last August.
Novavax will manufacture some of the vaccine using Fujifilm
Diosynth Biotechnologies facilities in Stockton-on-Tees,
northern England.
GSK and partner Sanofi suffered a development
setback in December, delaying the planned launch of their
jointly developed vaccine. But the British group has since
widened its efforts to fight the pandemic, agreeing to
collaborate on production and vaccine development with Germany's
CureVac.
It is also working on treatments against COVID-19.
Novavax Inc's COVID-19 vaccine was shown this month to be
96% effective in preventing cases caused by the original version
of the coronavirus in a trial in Britain.
The vaccine was also found at the time to be 86% effective
in protecting against the more contagious B117 variant, which
was first identified in Britain and is now spreading globally.
If authorised, it would follow three COVID-19 vaccines
previously approved for use in Britain from Pfizer PFE.N and
partner BioNTech, Moderna Inc and the
AstraZeneca shot developed with Oxford University.
(Reporting by Ludwig Burger
Editing by Gareth Jones)
