August 24, 2020 -- Catalent and AstraZeneca have signed an agreement to expand manufacturing support for an adenovirus vector-based COVID-19 vaccine from the University of Oxford.
Under the agreement, Catalent will provide drug substance manufacturing to AstraZeneca for the vaccine candidate, Azd1222. The candidate, which is currently in clinical trials, was licensed by AstraZeneca and co-invented by the University of Oxford and its spin-off company Vaccitech.
Catalent will manufacture the vaccine candidate in its more than 200,000-sq-ft commercial gene therapy manufacturing facility in Hermans, MD. The company is preparing the facility to run multiple simultaneous production trains in order to hit its production date of the third quarter of this year.
The agreement expands upon Catalent's previous support for Azd1222. The company previously announced it would use its facility in Anagni, Italy to produce large-scale vial filling and packaging of the vaccine candidate.